Trial of Leadership
by Swiss Army Knife
Summary: During their fight with the spiders, the company is divided. Fíli guides his fractured, querulous group toward Lake-town, hoping to rejoin Thorin. However, the shadow of the enemy stretches over their path, plaguing every step with danger and doubt.
1. Chapter 1

Written for This Prompt: The company ends up split into two groups. Thorin is obviously calm and logical. The other half, however, is thrown off by not having their king with them. They argue over which path to take and how to find their friends. Fíli, at first hesitant, gets annoyed and takes charge. Turns out, he's a natural. He works out where his uncle would have gone and leads his half of the company there. Reunited and gleeful at seeing his family safe, he returns to his quieter self. Thorin is told of how he acted and is damn proud.

* * *

TRIAL OF LEADERSHIP

by Swiss Army Knife

* * *

For as long as he lived, Fíli would never forget the vaults of Mirkwood.

It was a thousand hostile sounds nestled in the curl of his ears; the creaking of boughs and the clicking of insects. His boots sunk into a carpet of decaying leaves, lending greater danger to a place where a turned ankle or unlucky fall could mean catastrophe. Overhead, the trees pressed down with their branches like arms, their hearts like maws, and their smell like death. The hated forest path, which they had abandoned days ago, was now lost, and they could not find their way back. Despair crept in as hunger bore into lean bellies, and those who had entered the forest as proud dwarves began to quiver as paranoia seeped in around the real threats.

The menace was bad enough during the day, when through the green murk one could at least tell friend from foe. Yet at night an absolute darkness shrouded them, so black and terrible that no one could rest. When the company did attempt to sleep, Fíli and Kíli wedged themselves side by side, each grasping a weapon.

Distracted by the otherworldly eyes that flickered all around them, Fíli wasn't aware that his brother was awake until he felt the brush of stubble against his ear. "We should never have left the road. He doesn't know where we're going."

Kíli spoke of the endless pattern of circles they seemed to be making. When Bofur had found his own tobacco pouch, they knew they were retracing their steps. During that time, Fíli had looked to Thorin, just as they all had. He was chilled even now, remembering his uncle's ashen complexion as the group dissolved into shoving and panicky cries. Thank Mahal for Bilbo. Their halfling friend seemed not so affected as the rest of them. He had climbed a tree, and when he descended, speaking of breezes and butterflies, the mood had calmed. Still, the memory of Thorin's bewilderment was terrible, and Fíli didn't wonder that Kíli was haunted by it.

Unwilling to speak ill of their uncle, yet understanding the need for reassurance, Fíli turned onto his side, facing his brother. "Do you remember the time we were lost in the foothills of Ered Luin?"

Though it remained unseen, Fíli imagined the twitch of remembrance that had surely found its way onto Kíli's face. "Balin told us Thorin was frantic. They couldn't find us, but you never panicked."

"Neither did you."

"I knew that you would lead us home," Kíli said soberly.

His brow notched, Fíli remembered that first encounter with the full weight of responsibility he would carry; the knowledge that the fate of someone other than himself would be decided by where he lead. Yet, although that childhood forest had seemed so vast – as vast as Mirkwood to his inexperienced eyes – Fíli had been anchored by Kíli's fist knotted in his tunic, by the snot running down that chubby face and the blood oozing from his scrapped knees.

Fíli continued his recounting. "Four days we wandered. Four days chewing on dandelions and trying to find a star we knew – and cursing. You would not stop swearing, Kíli, do you remember? I thought Thorin was going to skin you alive during that phase, all while he was damning the Westerners for their influence. And then, when we were finally so weary we could barely walk, we found that village."

Kíli's teeth set with an audible grind. "I'll never forget that village."

Fíli nodded, knowing the movement would be telegraphed. He swallowed past that memory. "Yes, but Thorin found us, didn't he? Didn't stop for a bite to eat or a moment's rest." This he knew from Balin's stories, related to them in safety, when they were finally returned home. A true smile found its way onto his lips. "And that in spite of his reputation for having no sense of direction."

Kíli stifled a sound that might have been something as undignified as a chortle, had it been allowed full expression. "Dwalin despairs of him, you know. The heir of Durin, wandering bemused under a few trees, in full view of the sun."

The brothers, who had been reared as much in the wilds as in halls of stone, shared an incredulity that such a thing was possible. "Better that our ancestors dwelt underground, I suppose."

"But we aren't underground now," Kíli said, all levity gone.

Fíli exhaled, a puff of breath not unlike the caress of the huge black moths that whispered past. He knew that his brother did not mean to be rebellious, but his natural temperament was as turbulent as their uncle's. Kíli did not trust easily, and regrettably that skepticism extended even as far as Thorin sometimes. Fíli himself refused to be anything but certain. His own faith was a carefully cultivated thing, and he allowed no vein of doubt to weaken it. They would be free of this forest. They would reach Erebor. Thorin would never relent until it happened. Groping first to find it, he squeezed his brother's hand. "He'll get us out of here, Kíli."

The pressure of Kíli's answering grip put his heart at rest. The situation might seem dire, but it would take more than a comfortless forest full of fierce black squirrels and a poisonous stream to undermine the confidence they had in one other. Comforted now by the breathing of his comrades, by Kíli's warm shoulder, by the familiar squeak of a glove around the leather hilt of his weapon, Fíli allowed his eyes to drift closed.

* * *

In the small hours of the night, when the shadows themselves were cloaked by deeper shadow, Fíli awoke to a whisper like a cat's paws padding over flagstone. He raised his head though he could see nothing, not even the ridge of his own nose before his face. His body, wearied by the near-constant hallucinations, longed to lie back, but some restlessness was plucking at him. The hair on his arms and neck lifted, and his heart began drumming. Straining, he listened to the pitch black, but all was silence, silence...

It was then that he realized; it was the silence that disturbed him. Where had the threatening calls and creaks gone? Fíli's fingers curled around his weapon, fully alert. He opened his mouth to speak a warning, but before he could, the narrow, dark leaves exploded, and in their wake, great beasts broke in upon the company. Fíli had the brief impression of jaws and of gleaming dagger-like points affixed to many, many legs, and then a heavy body pinned him with its abdomen, shrieking in his face even as he raised his arm to parry the greedy, rasping mouth. He cried out when it dodged his clumsy defense and buried its teeth into his forearm. He struck out, aiming for the eyes, and it released him, but the burning pain remained, along with a light-headedness that almost prevented him from staggering to join his companions, who were now locked in combat.

Their horrified cries joined the unnerving shrieks of the spiders – huge, monstrous spiders. Moved by instinct, Fíli barely dodged the singing, deadly arch of Bofur's mattock, and he heard Ori's baleful wail of fear and rage as he fought, no doubt with little but his hands since his catapult would be useless in this murk and confusion. Dwalin's roar and Glóin's furious bellow rang out, but Thorin he did not hear, and even in the midst of battle, his mind turned to those whose backs he could not put against his own. He thought of Bilbo. Was someone with him? Was Kíli?

The spiders were fearsome opponents, and they had the advantage of terrain. They swarmed from the trees, which were coated with their loathsome webs. Some strands caught at Fíli's wounded arm, and he shouted as he yanked free. A hissing enemy hemmed him on one side, then another, moving so fast that even with their glowing eyes he could barely follow their movements. He swung blindly, trying to drive them back, but they were immune to fear. They were too ravenous, too fell, too ferocious.

At that very moment, Fíli heard his brother's cry. Desperate, he turned in that direction, but a spider's leg swept his knee and hobbled him. Then he was down, pressed suffocatingly into the underbrush. A penetrating, deep pain pierced his side, and he screamed. Then, while his arms and legs twitched, the darkness filled with bulbous yellow eyes. His companions fearful voices faded, and he knew no more.

* * *

The world was a sober grey twilight without shape or form. Fíli drifted like a cork on the sea, bobbing at first upon and then under its turbulent waves, at times aware of himself – Fíli, sister-son of Thorin, brother of Kíli – at others only a dim, flickering being, swollen with dark waters. There was no air but the faintest, most infrequent breath, and that breath was like a dagger of pain which he swallowed greedily before the waves bore him down again, into deep coma.

Then suddenly the pain poured in, and Fíli was seized by oxygen. He was no longer in the ocean, but in a tree: hanging, poisoned prey. There was a burning feeling in his chest as small hands tugged at the cords binding him. When his mouth finally cleared, he gasped a deep lungful of air while blistering faerie lights spotted his eyes, his limbs jerking feebly to free themselves.

Bilbo pressed insistently against his chest, hissing against his ear, "Stop squirming, Fíli," and Fíli caught sight of Bilbo's flashing blade.

It required all his willpower to remain still while Bilbo sawed, and even more to keep from disgracing himself while being hauled onto the branch. Bilbo rubbed circles into his back in a soothing but urgent rhythm while he fought nausea, the pain of the spider bites making him tremble all over. He pawed feebly at his eyebrows and nose, but the sticky mess would not come free, and meanwhile Bilbo was speaking, coaxing, pressing one of his own knives into his hand.

Understanding came, and he moved like an old man down the branch to the next captive. By now his wits were returning. They had been attacked by spiders. One of these bundles was his brother, the others his kin and companions. With fumbling hands, he hurried to haul another up with Bilbo, cutting the web until Bofur's red face was revealed, his thin moustaches caked and white. The older dwarf coughed and struggled, but Fíli held him down on the branch until his rolling eyes steadied.

On down the line, the others slowly emerged. Most were barely capable of movement; Dori could do little but dribble bile down his chin, and Bombur fell to the ground below, rolling onto his back and moaning. Fíli felt himself growing panicked. Finally, finally, he found dark hairs tangled in the web. Only when Kíli's face became visible, his lips almost blue but his eyes already blinking, did Fíli breathe again. He gripped his stupid, heavy little brother against his shoulder and panted with relief.

"I'll get the last," Bilbo said, leaving Fíli to finish freeing Kíli, who was rapidly regaining consciousness.

"Don't move," Fíli commanded, busy using his knife, his fingers.

Kíli stopped straining and sagged against his brother. A short cough made it out of his throat in place of a laugh. "Knew you'd get me out."

Fíli was forced to rasp through gritted teeth. "You knew no such thing. We'd all be dead if it weren't for Bilbo. We might still be dead. The spiders are distracted, but they'll be back."

"I can't feel my fingers," Kíli muttered, flexing them. "Numb all over."

Fíli gave him a push, hoisting them both to their knees so they could begin their unsteady climb to the forest floor where the others were gathering. "As long as your toes are working. We have to get out of here."

Kíli giggled. "Bifur only has seven, you know."

"What?"

"Toes."

Only filial benevolence kept Fíli from shoving his brother off the branch and watching him knock his idiot head on the way down. As it was, Kíli lost his footing at the final approach and, grasping Fíli's jacket, sent them both plunging the last few lengths. Dwalin snatched Kíli up by the collar and put him on his feet, thrusting a rock into his hands. Fíli saw his old mentor's face in the eerie phosphorus light put off by the webs, grim but aware.

The unnatural cries of the spiders reached them, echoing against the trunks as they came closer. Fíli took new grip on his knife, but Bilbo chose just that moment to appear. He shoved them, shouting at their backs. "Run. I'll do the stinging. I said run, you fools!"

So they ran, headlong through a corridor of darkness that bent under their poisoned legs and lashed about their swimming heads. Soon the spiders swarmed, darting in to bite and strike with their legs. Fíli retaliated, guarding what he thought was their flank. He knew that at one point a blazing blue sword joined them, snapping about and driving their foes back for a moment, but there were always, always more.

Their flight seemed to last forever, and the forest seized their minds again, twisting everything into an ever growing circle. Fíli's lungs heaved. "Kíli," he cried in a wavering voice, wanting to hear his brother say his name. He reached out his hand, his vision tilting crazily, but though the shadows warped around him like the figures of his friends, his fingers went through them like a mist. Finally, he dropped to one knee, and every light went out.

* * *

When Fíli woke, he was still in the thrall of Mirkwood. The dense branches overhead gave the impression of a cavern, only instead of stone there were great trees, and instead of warm torch light, there was only this eternal viridian gloom. Turning heavily onto his side, Fíli stifled a groan. Burning lines cut across his face, and when he blinked his vision was bleary. He struggled to reorient. How far had they traveled from the nest of spiders? Where were the others?

A sound came from nearby, and Fíli's hands went automatically to his bracers. Of course, his weapons were gone, even the little knife that Bilbo had given him. He thought he remembered plunging it through tough chitin and feeling it lodge there. Everything else had been picked from them like bones under a flaying knife by the spiders' delicate claws. The memory was awful, but Fíli closed his throat, refusing to be mastered by it. The hoarse sound came again, this time clearly recognizable as someone vomiting. Fíli pushed himself onto wobbling legs.

He found Ori with his arms curled around his belly. They hadn't eaten properly in days and nothing much was coming up, but the poor fellow still heaved with his whole body. Dropping beside him, Fíli rolled him onto his knees so he wouldn't choke. "It's alright, Ori," he whispered encouragement. "Nothing left in there. Push your stomach muscles out slowly. Can you swallow?"

The convulsions began to ease, and Ori went limp against his side. The drunken sprawl made Fíli think of his brother, as Kíli had been known to swoon all over him when he wasn't feeling well. A bittersweet grin touched his lips as he thought of those times, and it prompted him to rub the back of Ori's neck. Unfortunately, there wasn't time to wait for him to fully recover. They were alone here, in hostile territory. It was imperative that they find the others.

Fíli helped the younger dwarf to his feet. Ori made a wavering attempt to support his own weight, but his legs wouldn't hold. Anxious to be moving, Fíli finally offered his back. "Come on, then, Ori. Up you go."

As Ori tucked his arms around Fíli's neck and buried his nose in the matted hair, he muttered, "I don't feel well, Dori."

Fíli flinched. On a night long ago before a hearth fire, Balin had spoken about the dwarves who dwelt in the Blue Mountains, some of whom were distant relations. From those confidences, he knew that Dori had all but raised his brother, and being mistaken for him made Fíli uncomfortable. Nonetheless, he would have wanted Kíli allowed at least so small a comfort had their places been reversed. He hitched Ori more securely against his back. "I've got you, Ori. Just rest now."

They hadn't been traveling long before they found Bifur. He came staggering through the tree trunks, grunting in Khuzdul, his beard streaked a ghostly white. Profoundly relieved to see another of the company, Fíli seized the older dwarf by the arm without thinking. "Bifur!"

He got bashed across the face for his trouble. Ori fell with a squeak of protest, and for a moment all Fíli saw were flecks of black light. When he came to, Bifur was squinting at him. He gave Fíli's face a stiff, awkward pat, directly over the throbbing spot where his blow had connected. Fíli grimaced but accepted when Bifur offered to pull him up. Offended pride might have prevented Thorin from taking his hand, but Fíli couldn't blame someone for defending themselves in this wretched gloom.

Instead, he clasped Bifur's shoulder reassuringly. _"T_ _herek ikhlit_ _,_ _Udmai."_

Bifur nodded. He gestured toward a woozy Ori, who looked as though at least some of his senses had returned. He was rubbing his stiff ginger hair mournfully. "We're lost, aren't we? Have you heard anyone else?"

Fíli, who hadn't even allowed himself to think of his own brother except in passing, refused to offer false assurances. "Can you walk?"

Ori could, but he was unsteady and ended up clinging to a fistful of Fíli's jacket. On his other side, Bifur gazed at him as though expecting him to lead the way. Fíli wondered at their unspoken confidence. His head was vibrating like a hammer that had struck an anvil. His forearm and side ached fiercely, and he felt hot and cold in intervals. Yet here were these two, waiting.

As they made their way, Fíli took in the lines of the forest, which had grown less dense. He recognized the trees and knew they were a good sign. Soon, a discernable wash of pale light seemed to penetrate the canopy. Fíli could see much further in the distance, and so it was by sight that he spotted more of their scattered party. He put his hand on Ori's shoulder. "Look."

"Nori!" The younger dwarf exclaimed as he ran toward his kin, who opened his arms just in time to avoid being barreled over. Bofur, who stood beside him, barked out a surprised laugh, pounding the younger dwarf on the shoulder while Ori went on and on about how afraid he'd been that Nori had been slain, and had he seen Dori, and where had he _been_ , and –

As he came closer, Fíli could see that Nori's posture was strangely bowed. The densely woven plaits in his hair had become tangled with the spider webs, effectively blinding him. Knowing how impossible those strands were to remove, Fíli was moved by sympathy and reached to grip the older dwarf by the shoulder. He was only a little startled when Nori's hand darted up, grasping his in return.

Bofur cleared his throat. He had lost his hat somewhere in their wild flight, and his twin braids drooped forlornly down his neck. However, his grey eyes had grown bright as they joined company. "You're a sight for sore eyes. We've been searching for hours now, and I was starting to think Nori and I were the only ones in these parts."

Grunting, Nori glared more or less in the general direction of his younger brother. "He was fretting, wasn't he? Gets it from Dori, that nagging mother hen."

Ori bristled. "Maybe if you stayed out of trouble, we wouldn't worry so much."

Any further conversation was cut off as a new figure emerged from further beyond. Bedraggled though he was, Dwalin was nonetheless easily recognizable as he strode towards them, eyes smoldering. "Keep it down. You'll get us all killed."

Nori glared through his veil of hair and cobweb, but Fíli felt a coil unwinding inside him. "Mister Dwalin," he said, offering his arm. "Have you seen Thorin?"

Dwalin wagged his head gravely. "Afraid not. I've been wandering for ages, but you're the first I've found." He eyed the others – scrawny Ori in his soiled knit work, the blinded Nori, Bofur with his half grin, and the oblivious, damaged Bifur. A line drew down his brow.

Fíli was disappointed there was no news. Nonetheless, his heart was still easier. He had tremendous respect for Dwalin, and having him here made this situation seem less untenable. "The good news is that the trees have changed. We can't be very far from the end of Mirkwood."

Ori piped up. "How do you figure that?"

With an effort, Fíli didn't smile at his wondering tone, knowing that Ori was more a scholar than a woodsman. Indeed, _woodsman_ was hardly a word commonly used to describe any dwarf. Yet Fíli had lived as much of his life in the forests as the mountains. Since they were children, Kíli had dragged him off on all kinds of expeditions, ranging over hill and dell, camping out under the stars, and harassing the hunters and rangers they encountered to glean from their knowledge and experience. Kíli loved to learn about every growth of moss, every edible root, every distinctly shaped leaf, and Fíli had learned alongside him. He knew the bark and branches by their color and shape, knew where they grew. He'd never been so glad to have a brother who was an eccentric.

"These are black alders. They're more likely found at a forest's edge. If we keep to them, we should find other signs to lead us out of here."

Ori was nodding, full of confidence. Bifur made a movement, forearm thumped against a fist, ready to proceed. Nori stood frowning, braced against his younger brother, while Bofur merely waited for direction. Only Dwalin made no word or movement. He stood rigidly, and in his broad shoulders Fíli read doubt. Finally, he lifted his bare head and looked at the canopy far overhead, at the strange, tall shadows cast by the trees. "I don't know if you're right," he said. "But we cannot just sit here. Lead on."

* * *

Using the trees as a guide, the reduced company traveled for miles. Always, they kept their heads up, tense for any threat or the sight of another dwarf (or hobbit), but they saw no one. In time, the light grew stronger and less green, until eventually they were blinking as tiny patches of sky became visible for the first time in weeks. With the sun, they were able to find east, and it was to the east that they traveled. Soon the ground grew less knobby with root and more spongy. The trees changed again, and in a blinding, sudden moment, the forest ended. Stretched out before them was the River Running and the lands east of Mirkwood. Lands Fíli had never seen.

Ori's chin dropped, too amazed to speak until his brother grunted, "What d'ya see?"

Fíli had been looking into the far distance, squinting to discern Erebor or some other landmark he might know. Now he looked less beyond and more before them. A thick stench hung in the air, and after a short stretch of dark soil extending down the incline, the ground became wet. From where they stood, he could see a labyrinth of twining water passages, like a green snake knotted around and over itself a thousand times.

Quietly, Ori admitted, "Marshes. I see marshes. I don't remember this on any map."

"I've heard of the Long Marshes," said Bofur, scratching his head woefully. "But I didn't know they extended so far south."

"The land has changed," Dwalin admitted, shaking his head slowly. He looked almost as bewildered as Ori. "I cannae believe it. There was no bog here."

Fíli inhaled the unmistakable odor of stagnant water and peat. Already, small insects were beginning to bother him; he slapped at his hand and looked down to see a prick of blood. "It's been one hundred and seventy years since the dwarves of Erebor passed this way. Although, that even Gandalf didn't know to tell us –" Dismayed, he shook his head. "Maybe it's like the forest. The Greenwood going to spiders, and ill airs, and poisoned water. Maybe something dark _is_ coming into the world, and it's changing nature itself."

Dwalin snorted. "No matter how it got there, at least it's not this stinking forest. They'll be food and water. Then we can decide how best to get back to Thorin."

He spoke truth; they were all desperately hungry and thirsty, though their tight bellies had by this time forgotten what it meant to have regular meals. And while none he knew had been so vast, Fíli was comfortable with bottomland. There would be conies and snakes, wading birds and edible plants. Yes – he raised his chin – this was a good development. Here, they could regroup and gain strength and make a plan to find his uncle and brother again.

A hand thumped on his shoulder, and he looked behind to see Bifur staring at the marshes. Fíli smiled at the strange old veteran. "Onward, eh?"

In a rare moment of certain connection, Bifur looked directly at Fíli and nodded.

* * *

Author's Note: It's probably already obvious that I enjoy integrating canon when it suits the story, so expect a great deal of preferential splicing: a bit of the pugnacious, Jacksonesque characterization of the dwarvish characters mixed with details of J.R.R. Tolkien's original tale. Unfortunately, Fíli had little opportunity for development in either, but Dean O'Gorman's impression of quiet dignity was sufficient for me. As for the other members of Fíli's company, I wrestled a lot before casting them. Bofur was a very late edition; however, in the end he was far too lively a companion to leave behind.

Next Chapter Summary: The company struggles to be free of the entanglements of Mirkwood, and arguments start almost immediately.

 **A gentle reminder:** Please take the time to leave a quote or detail that stood out to you. Much appreciated.


	2. Chapter 2

**Trial of Leadership (2/11)**

* * *

Fíli sighed with pleasure. Though mucky, the water felt cool on his face, soothing the swollen red places where the webs had grafted. He found the sticky threads grew pliable when wet, and with determined scrubbing, he'd finally been able to work most of it out of his skin. His clothes were another matter, and he realized with reluctance that he would have to discard the fur sewn into the collar. It had been given to him by his uncle as a visible sign of his station. Still, if a king needed the remains of a dead animal to mark his nobility, he didn't much deserve the title. Fíli cast aside the ruined burden, then straightened his shoulders. Much lighter, though he probably looked more the role of a vagabond now, his apparel ripped and ragged and covered with mud.

The others were in the midst of their own disappointing attempts to be free of Mirkwood. Ori had been the most successful; his beard wasn't much thicker than Kíli's, and by combing with his fingers and rubbing with sand, his straight hair had yielded most of the gooey mess. Bifur seemed unmoved by the webs. He sat contentedly in the shallow water, his deep voice rumbling up and down a song Fíli didn't recognize. Dwalin too, with his bald pate, seemed more interested in scouting the area than in cleaning. It was Nori who had suffered most, and even now he seemed hopelessly entrenched.

Fíli joined him on the embankment where he sat prying at his beard. Concerned by the edge of panic he sensed, Fíli knelt. "Stop," he commanded. In spite of Nori's efforts, Fíli could just barely see two tired eyes peeking out, surrounded by flesh swollen with scratches. Gently, Fíli probed the matted hair, but in the end he could see that there was only going to be one solution. It made his heart sink.

Bofur joined them, his expression creased with sympathy. "He's stuck good and fast, isn't he?"

Ori squatted at his brother's side. "What are we going to do?"

Nori must have known his fate already, yet even so, Fíli could sense his horror as he listened to the words that no dwarf in Middle Earth would want to hear: "Nori, the only way we're going to get this free is by cutting it."

Dwalin, who had been listening, pulled something from his belt and offered it to Fíli. It was a knife, very small but enough for this. Taking the blade by its handle, Fíli looked at Nori. To have one's beard cut was a disgrace, and he knew Nori's pride. It was something he held onto as fiercely as any dwarf, even as the strain of their exile had pressed him to make difficult choices. Rumors of his lifestyle were known to the company, but Fíli had no interest in being his judge. He didn't know what Nori had felt compelled to do, but Fíli did know what it was like to be desperate.

Only then did it occur to him what might be done, and Fíli gripped the knife tightly. He had been just sixteen when he woke to find that a very fine, soft layer of hair had grown on his chin. It had been so light, fairer even than the hair on his head, that he hadn't noticed until Kíli burst into tears. They'd both still been boys, but Kíli had taken his brother's sudden sign of maturity hard. Their mother could not console him, and only Thorin's rebuke – "Childishness is more than the appearance of your face!" – had silenced him. Fíli, meanwhile, had made up his mind. That night he gestured for Kíli to join him on the bed.

Lip jutting, Kíli insisted, "I'm _not_ pouting."

Fíli looked at him with the exasperated fondness of all older brothers, then took out the blade. It's keen edge reflected the light of the candle, and Kíli's eyes became huge dark buttons at the sight of it. Putting the edge against his cheek, Fíli said, "I can wait."

Even if he had been older, this probably wouldn't have ended well, as shaving wasn't a regular practice among dwarves. As it was, Fíli cut himself and bled all over their blankets. He still had the scar, a small, white knick now hidden under his beard. Still, it had been worth it – both the scar and Thorin's disappointment – because even though the stubble had returned, darker and thicker than before, that sacrifice had been worth something to his brother. Now, once more, Fíli found himself taking up a blade on another's behalf.

"There's no help for it," he said, putting the blade to the thin moustache on his own face and, in a movement that didn't hesitate, cut it free. The small braid laid in his hand like a stricken seedling, but Fíli took only the time to work the silver clasp free before letting the strands fall to the boggy ground, there to be collected by a nesting animal or absorbed into the earth. With deft cuts, he relieved himself of his remaining braids, the other at his mouth, the four at his temples – and then, with barely a grimace – the long one at the crown of his head. Afterwards, he offered the knife to Nori.

The other dwarf was staring at him, his gaze barely discernable. Fingers twitched forward, but then withdrew. Grunting, he settled back and said hoarsely, "You do it."

Fíli was moved by the request and the trust it implied. Carefully, he took hold of Nori's chin and began sawing. It was difficult work at times to cut the hair free without maiming its owner. Finally, though, Nori's face was more bare than it had likely been in decades. He sat rubbing his chin, looking bewildered. Fíli could understand. The breeze on his face was strange, and he felt naked. Still, Nori's calm demeanor reassured him.

Laughing, Bofur pounded Nori on the back. "A close shave has done you wonders. You look fifty years younger."

Dwalin was standing by, a witness to the scene, his face unreadable. Fíli tried to hand him back his weapon; however, the older dwarf shook his head. "No, it belongs to you now," he said. "By right of blood."

Fíli was bemused. Of course he knew the lore surrounding the redeeming of blades, yet no blood had been split here today. Nonetheless, he tucked the tiny knife into his belt, comforted by the familiar press of dwarvish iron.

Their next goal: food. He looked around, examining what might be near at hand. A growth of cattails immediately attracted his attention, and he smiled. Once, near the Grey Havens, a ranger they had met had pointed out just such a plant, calling it the market of the wilds. "You may eat the roots in season," he had said, cutting away the fibrous outer sheathe to show them the milky white interior of the stem. "This may be eaten raw or boiled, and the fruit, when its cob grows, may be ground into a flour. Coarse eating, but filling and good. Remember it well, little dwarves."

Kíli had been so fascinated that he had not even taken offence when called "little". Fíli, too, remembered it, and he reached for the plant now. It would be a start.

* * *

With their bellies full, the dwarves recovered some of their spirits. They were strangers in a strange land, separated from their friends, yet the cool breeze and the swiftly sinking sun made the world seem more golden and less threatening than before. They stretched their limbs, too long crabbed and restrained, and filled their lungs greedily with air. Bofur even had strength enough to joke, passing remarks about his cousin's bedraggled appearance until Bifur shoved him into a puddle. The former tinker sat submerged straight through to his drawers and laughed, his good humor hardly dampened.

The others were not so lighthearted. Dwalin had not ceased scanning the long horizon, and Nori was growing restless. "We should head south," he suggested. "There are villages on the outskirts of Gondor. I've traveled in that kingdom before, and the men there are friendly toward dwarves."

Fíli knew that such a journey could take weeks, and he searched for a way to voice his disapproval without giving offense. Dwalin had no such restraint. He snorted, derision clear in the cut of his eyes. "That's a fool idea if I ever heard one."

Stiffening, Nori grew in size like a rooster whose feathers were ruffled. He'd always been reserved in the presence of Thorin, but now his strong personality was not so eclipsed. There was none toward whom he felt differential, and the portion of his character defined as a robustly independent agent of fortune was swiftly reemerging. "We have no weapons, no supplies. We can eat foliage until we turn green, but an axe or mattock isn't likely to be found sprouting from the ground."

Ori, whose face had turned pale at the mention of feeding on vegetation, murmured uncertainly, "He's right about that. I feel naked without my catapult." He stared down at his hands, shrouded as they were in knitwork that had grown so holey that it was a wonder it provided any warmth at all.

Bofur weighed in. "I have experience with the men of the South, too, and I agree they would trade with us, but we don't have anything to exchange. We'd have to work, and by then –"

"By then we might as well abandon Erebor and the quest," Dwalin interrupted, speaking directly to Nori. "To say nothing of the king you swore to honor."

It was a challenge, and Nori wasn't fool enough to mistake it. Coldly, he said, "I honor Thorin."

Dwalin's voice lowered and his accent deepened until each word emerged gravely and thick. "Yet you would turn tail and run. I might have known it of someone like you."

It was an unambiguous reference to Nori's raffish reputation, and Fíli was alarmed by the hostility he sensed burgeoning between the two. Ori and Bofur both shifted with discomfort, and Nori himself went as rigid as a bowstring. Slowly he drew even with Dwalin, almost treading on his toes as he straightened to his fullest height. "Do you have something to say to me, son of Fundin? You and your brother act so high and mighty, but you aren't the only ones kin to the house of Durin, and I won't be disparaged or called a coward by the likes of you."

Dwalin's hand instantly shot out. Knowing the power of that fist, Fíli interceded. Forcing himself between them, he thrust Dwalin back with all his strength, conscious of the fact that Dwalin's shoulders were a bracket over his own and that Nori's blistering gaze was no less heated. "Stop, this is no time to fight among ourselves."

Nori didn't speak, though Fíli could still read his aggression. Dwalin, on the other hand, had plenty to say. "This traitor would abscond from the company, abandon Thorin, abandon our quest. He sullies the name of all dwarves, putting us on the same footing as common thieves, and insults the House of Durin by association. I said from the beginning he had no place in the company – the gutless, purse-cutting –"

Fíli interrupted hastily before Dwalin said something that Nori could not honorably ignore. More than enough had been said already. "This is a time to make a decisions, not quarrels," he said. "I agree that we should try to rejoin the others if we can – but, Dwalin, we cannot retrace our steps into Mirkwood. We may lose ourselves rather than find the company, and without weapons or provisions we could well make a meal for the spiders." Seeing a smirk appear on Nori's face, Fíli was prompted to continue. "I also would not go to the men of the South. We might find work and goods, but it would not reunite us with our brethren, and that is our clear duty."

"Where then?" Dwalin asked gruffly.

Fíli knew that his old teacher was barely restraining his temper. "If they are with Thorin," he answered and swallowed, for his brother's fate rested on that hope, "then he will lead them out of Mirkwood. We should meet him at our original destination."

"The Lonely Mountain?" gasped Ori, seemingly boggled by the distance.

"No, Lake-town," Fíli clarified. He had spent hours looking at these lands on maps with his uncle and Balin, tracing the river with his finger past the ruined city of Dale – a mere smear of ink to him – on to the very edge of the mountain. He knew the shape of it, could see its curve in his inner eye: the lake with a city in its center. The size of the marshes was unexpected, but they had always planned to come this way. Fíli was fairly sure he could lead them to the human settlement in the north.

There was silence as the group considered his words. No doubt they were wrestling with how certain they were the others had survived to make such a meeting possible. Fíli drew Dwalin's attention. "I want to be back with them no less than you, but we must assume they are wise enough to escape the forest themselves. Only a fool attempts a rescue by walking into a snare, or so I've heard it said."

The maxim was Dwalin's own, and Fíli was rewarded when his mentor's shoulders finally lost their tension and he admitted, "You're right."

"But how are we going to get past all this?" Ori looked with despair at the treacherous ground, which extended as far as the eye could see. As the final vestiges of daylight dimmed, a fog seemed to be rising, giving the land an eerie shroud. The haunting "Oo! Oo!" of an unseen fowl made goose pimples break out over their flesh, and suddenly the breeze that had seemed so welcoming felt damp and cold.

Fíli took all this in with as much impartiality as he could muster. "We cannot stay so near Mirkwood." Even now the ill humors of the forest were touching him, setting his teeth on edge. No, he wanted to be well quit of the wood and the influence it had on their senses. "The marsh would provide food, but I would not travel there long. I say we cut across until we reach the river. We can follow it until we reach Lake-town."

Nori no longer looked mutinous, but the lines of his face were doubtful. Yet not of Fíli, it seemed, for when he spoke it was to say, "My skills won't be much help here."

"Nonsense." Fíli clapped his hand on Nori's arm. "You have a keen eye, and I know you have experience as a hunter and forager."

Dwalin spoke under his breath. "A poacher and a thief, more like."

Fíli made his frown of disapproval as strong as a he dared, and thankfully Dwalin said no more. "Someone with experience living off the land will never go amiss in a place like this. You'll help me guide them, Nori."

Ori's approach was sheepish, but eager. "What about me?"

Fíli smiled. Ori had a defenselessness that Kíli had never possessed, but the puppyish eagerness was much the same. He bent and, using the little knife Dwalin had given him, began freeing the leather straps which bound his boots. Strips torn from his tunic would make a useable alternative; the straps, on the other hand, would serve better as a weapon. He tossed them to Ori. "I know you're a dead shot with your catapult, Ori, but how are you with a sling?"

Ori's hands moved excitedly over the leather, already turning them round, refashioning them. "I used to use one all the time," he said. "It was my favorite –" His words were cut of as Ori flushed, and Fíli knew that he had meant to say 'toy', but that was fine. There had certainly been a near genocide of small birds and squirrels the year Kíli had received his first 'toy' bow.

Bifur needed no instructions. He stood with eyes smoldering, and ducked his chin. Bemused, Fíli returned his nod. What he wouldn't give to understand what the old dwarf was thinking beneath his inscrutable grunts and silences. Bofur, it seemed, was resigned to follow where the others led. He looked at Fíli with relief, saying, "That's settled then."

A glance showed that Dwalin was not as convinced as the others were. His defined forearms were crossed over his chest, and he was wearing the same frown he had when, as a lad, Fíli had tried to lift his uncle's sword and been unable to do so. Strangely, Fíli experienced the same emotion he had then: the feeling of being unsuited and unprepared. Yet Fíli had labored under insecurities of that sort since boyhood, when he and others first understood that Thorin would not marry or beget children, making Fíli suddenly quite important. Usually, Kíli's presence made the burden easier, but his brother was not here.

Bracing himself, Fíli waited for Dwalin to speak. "You really think it would be best to cross territory we do not know without even looking for our friends? What if we should get to Lake-town and wait in vain for Thorin because he cannot meet us?"

Fíli answered, "I won't say I'm not daunted by the idea of trekking across these marshes, but I'm certain we can do it. As for Thorin, I don't think it's possible for us to find him, or I would be the first to turn back." A sudden burst of insight kindled and he realized that Dwalin was also missing a brother, to say nothing of a king. However well his gruffness covered it, he had to be anxious. It caused Fíli to say, "All of my family is in that darkness, Mister Dwalin. I would not walk one step farther from them if there was even a particle of hope. Yet I believe we must trust them, as they are surely trusting us. Thorin needs no rescue from me."

There was a flicker in Dwalin's eye, which frankly Fíli could not read. Yet when Dwalin did finally respond, it was to grunt and turned his head. "Alright, Laddie," he said. "We'll do it your way and hike through this godforsaken swamp. What do you propose we do first?"

There was censure hidden in that acquiescence, but Fíli could bear it. He took in the sky of long-winged birds and shifted his footing in the loamy soil. Breathing in, he could smell decaying plant life and stagnant water. He shared his thoughts. "For tonight, a fire," he said. "And sleep, if we can manage it. I don't know about you, but I've never been so happy to see stars."

* * *

That night, the remaining dwarves of Thorin's company fell instantly asleep, so tired they barely had the sense to set a watch. Fíli was no less exhausted. His side ached with a deep, abiding pain, and his arm had swollen so tightly against his bracer than he was forced to unbuckle it. His head was leaden with weariness, but it was no use. He could not sleep.

Rising, he stepped over the outstretched arm of Bofur, who was snoring. He heard Ori's sleepy whispers and Nori's huffy, discontented somnolent sounds. These he passed. When he stopped, his boots sunk into the spongy soil. Under a waning moon he could see the phosphorescent channels stretched out. Nocturnal sounds abounded; crickets and swaying reed, and the deep bass croaking of a toad.

 _'You remember what they say about a frog croaking, Fíli,'_ a voice that existed only in mind spoke. Mirthful dark eyes flashed with good humor. _'One croak is nothing, two croaks will steal your luck away, and –"_

"Three for bad dreams." Fíli's murmur slipped, barely audible, past his lips. A dense, tight lump filled his throat, and he swallowed around it painfully.

A heavy tread alerted him, and he turned as Dwalin emerged from the darkness. "It won't be your watch for a few hours yet. You should be sleeping."

Fíli didn't say that the barren spot beside him had been too empty and too cold; he'd been reprimanded far too often for how closely he bound himself to his brother. Instead, he offered a partial explanation: "The forest presses too near for my comfort."

"A warrior should be able to rest whenever the opportunity comes." It was a familiar chastisement, but it did not sound harsh, not tonight. Instead, both stared into the swamp as the lunar light reflected off channels of water.

"We're in a tight spot, Mister Dwalin."

Dwalin heaved a sigh. "There's no mistaking that. Barely a sharp edge between us, and a very dangerous road ahead."

Fíli's eyes fluttered closed, knowing what he said was true. Mirkwood was full of threats cloaked in madness, while the Long Marshes was unknown. Nor could they forget their most deadly pursuers, Azog and his orcs, whose foul nature might lend them a swifter passage through the Greenwood then the dwarves had found. Yet in spite of these factors, one thing seemed clear to Fíli. "Lake-town is our best hope. I know you disagree, but I can think of no better path."

"It may be that you're right." However, while Dwalin's words said 'aye', the shortness of his tone was disheartening.

 _'He fears for Balin_ _,'_ Fíli reminded himself. The sons of Fundin were not overly sentimental, but Fíli had seen them in rare moments when, through clouds of blue pipe smoke, they looked at one another with such strong bonds of kinship they could not be mistaken. It moved him to speak what was in his heart: "Do you think they're together? Do you think that they're safe?"

Dwalin didn't respond. Instead, his expression darkened, and he looked over his shoulder at their sleeping companions. "Not thirteen of the best nor brightest; that's what my brother called us in the Shire. Now we're fewer still, and I fear we're dredging the very bottom of the barrel."

Strong-willed Nori, with his ignoble reputation. Ori the scholar, in his soiled knitwork. Bofur the tinkerer, herald of calamity. And unpredictable Bifur, so maimed by the wars he could not speak clearly. ' _And me_." Fíli thought, ' _Had you your pick of Durins, I would not have been your choice either, is that not so?_

Kíli spoke at times of his secret fear that he had not earned his elders' approval, but Fíli knew better. His brother was full of the brash fighting spirit that dwarvish warriors like Dwalin valued above all. Fíli, on the other hand, was cool, even in the heat of battle. He valued retreat, timing, and retort. Parry as much as thrust. But these things weren't very like a dwarf, and at times he had discerned a thread of disapprobation from his old mentor.

Pressing down the tendril of melancholy that threatened, Fíli said, "You once told me that any object could be a weapon in the hands of a master."

Dwalin huffed. "You always had a talent for bringing out my own words against me. But there's a great deal at stake here. Is there no way I can convince you to change your mind?"

Dwalin knew, then, that the others were committed to following him. Fíli wasn't sure how it had happened, but somehow he'd taken possession of this small company. It was a burden to him already, and he longed to lean on Dwalin's wisdom and experience. Yet Fíli that going north to Lake-town was right. He also knew that Nori would not submit to Dwalin. The strain could break the company, something Fíli would be ashamed to permit.

It seemed he had no choice. "My mind is made up, Mister Dwalin."

It might have been imagined, but there seemed to be a kind of softening of Dwalin's mouth, half hidden beneath his mustaches. "So be it, then. We'll have to do what we can and hope it's enough, because aside from a few lengths of cord, lint, and that little penknife I gave you, there isn't much else on hand."

The boggy, oppressive mist stirred, moved by a faint wind. The stench filled Fíli's nostrils as the marshes stretched out, widening until they were all that he could see. Beyond them was the river, and upstream was the Long Lake. Within the confines of his own mind, Fíli wondered, _'That_ is _where you will take them, isn't it, Uncle?'_

A heavy hand pressed his back unexpectedly. "Try to rest," Dwalin said. "I'll wake that scoundrel Nori when the time comes, so sleep deeply if you can. There may not be another chance."

* * *

Next Chapter Summary: Bilbo finds Kíli and the other dwarves in Thranduil's dungeons.


	3. Chapter 3

**Trial of Leadership (3/11)**

* * *

In the prison of the Elven King, darkness seeped into the silent corners. It was a different darkness than Mirkwood, not so fathomless nor so deep. Dwarves understood caverns, after all, even ones hewn by dripping water and the passage of time rather than by the labor of a cunning hand. Yet, though this darkness was not the kind that sapped the strength from Kíli's heart, it was still terrible, for here he was alone.

Shifting against the cold stone, Kíli mumbled curses under his breath. All these days, and he had still not seen his brother. Fíli had not been with them when they were dragged before Thranduil, nor had Kíli seen him when they were taken to their cells. For all he knew, Fíli could be slain, his body lying abandoned in the forest. The thought parched Kíli's throat, and he swallowed, thinking of home. Not once had he longed for it, not one solitary moment on this entire journey until now. His true home was with Fíli, and he felt bereft.

A tiny, disembodied voice whispered his name. "Kíli?"

Startled, Kíli turned around. Dimly, he could see the door by the light emitted from the keyhole. Shuffling, he approached, his lips close to the tiny opening. "Fíli?"

An uncomfortable shift on the other side of the door. "No," the unknown speaker answered. "Not Fíli."

"Bilbo." Kíli knew it as surely as if he could see their unlikely companion, his shaggy head grown more unkempt with every mile. Involuntarily, his head fell. However, it was a brief disappointment, for in the next instant the significance of that small voice stuck him like a thunderbolt. Urgently, he pressed himself nearer the keyhole. "Bilbo, you scoundrel! You'll make a burglar yet. Have you just found your way into the stronghold?"

"I've been here for days, hiding," Bilbo explained. "Exploring the passages, looking for you and the others. It hasn't been easy. It's like a labyrinth down here."

Hope flared again. His heart thudded in protest, but he squashed the warning. "And…did you find the others?"

It wasn't the question he really wanted to ask, but Bilbo wasn't a fool. His voice was filled with regret when he answered. "I'm sorry, Kíli. I don't know where Fíli is."

Silence sawed like a serrated edge. Finally, though, Kíli found his voice. "Who have you found?"

"Thorin and Balin," Bilbo listed. "Óin and Glóin. Dori and Bombur. Now you. Everyone else is still missing, and I don't think they're here. The guards don't speak of them, and they don't carry provisions anywhere else. I think they might still be in the forest."

Mirkwood, that den of spiders. Kíli's had known many foul places, but not even the gristly, frenetic heat of the goblin den could match that cursed wood of nightmares and nooses, potholes and little deaths, fat black moths and insect eyes in the night.

"Kíli?" Bilbo said, realizing it had been quiet for too long.

Kíli sat on the flagstones and let his head fall, feeling the cool point of contact against the back of his head. "Are the others alright?"

There was a long pause before Bilbo answered. "Dori wept when I told him I couldn't find either of his brothers."

Kíli closed his eyes. "This is Ori's first time away from home."

Bilbo, who until the last few months had not set foot beyond the outskirts of the Shire, no doubt understood. For a while, both mediated on their separate thoughts, but eventually Bilbo said, "I'm working on a plan, but for the moment you'll have to sit tight. At least it was the elves who captured you and not those beastly orcs."

Indeed, though Thranduil had declared his captives could rot for a hundred years in his dungeon, he apparently didn't intend for them to die of starvation. The dwarves had received food and water, even a perfunctory kind of medical care, the wounds from the spiders treated. Succor from so bitter an enemy was hard to accept, but Bilbo was right. It gave them time.

"I'm sure you'll find a way," Kíli said, but he couldn't help feeling sick with anxiety.

Bilbo seemed determined to distract Kíli from dark imaginings of their friends wandering on endless, looping paths. "At home," he said, "we often tell stories to pass the time. Honestly, I barely remember any of the better ones, it seems like so long since I heard them, but perhaps dwarves have tales of their own."

Thankful for companionship after nothing but echoes in so long, Kíli took up the thread. "Ori is good at that sort of thing. He memorizes the old tales, epic battle poems and myths. He recited the entire _Nâla_ _Gabil_ once, though I think he was just showing off. He thinks the sun rises and sets on my brother, you know."

Bilbo gave a faint chuckle. "That sounds like Ori."

Kíli smiled, thinking fondly of their first meeting with their distant cousins, Dori and Ori, and how the younger had tripped over himself trying to get Fíli's attention. He hadn't needed to try so hard. Reserved though he might be, Fíli was generous, and his overall presence was rarely forbidding like Thorin. He was warm, willing to please and be pleased. Easy to like if not easily known.

"I forget sometimes how young you all are," Bilbo continued. "Though I suppose your upbringing must have been very different from a hobbits. I doubt you spent your childhood chasing fireflies and dreaming of elves, after all."

Kíli had dreamed of warriors and battles and dangerous quests, not elves. Memories returned of summer afternoons slashing at low hanging trees with a stick for a sword. ' _Ugh, you've got me!'_ A younger version of Fíli cried in a wounded voice. He fell on his back, only to have his 'heavy' little brother flop down on top of his stomach, cackling impishly. ' _Ooph! Kíli!'_

"Have _you_ ever been so far from home, Kíli?"

Kíli's boot scrapped on the stone floor as he stretched. "I've traveled with caravans, but I've never been this far east."

"Do you travel with caravans often?"

A grunt of assent. "Guarding wagons is dull, but I still usually managed to find an adventure or two." He recalled some of his more daring feats and the straits that inevitably followed. He admitted, "My mother things I'm reckless."

Sounding amused, Bilbo said, "I've known you for months only, but I can already tell you've got a wild heart, Kíli – full to the brim with impulsive bravely and a good measure of obstinacy besides. All traits likely to get a lad in trouble growing up."

Grimacing at Bilbo's painfully apt description, Kíli muttered, "I can't help it."

"Perhaps it's not such a bad thing," Bilbo suggested. "After all, you and Thorin seem much the same."

Kíli snorted. "We're often likened to one another. Stubborn-headed and short-tempered, convinced we're in the right." He paused, clearing his throat. "Not so, Fíli."

"No?"

Kíli shook his head, though he knew it would go unseen. "Fíli would sit all night in a tavern and never say a word if I let him, content to drink his ale and listen to me embellish stories. He does try to keep me about of trouble, but it rarely works. More often than not, I end up leading _him_ into mischief."

Bilbo's suggested, "Perhaps that's the way of older siblings."

There was the distinct thunk of his head falling back against the oak door. "Bilbo, where is he?"

The sorrow in his plaintive query was hardly hidden, but Bilbo wouldn't let him wallow. Firmly, he said, "He's probably out of these dreadful woods already and making good time toward Erebor. They'll expect us to join them, so we can't let them down. In the meantime, I wouldn't mind a story about the reckless young Kíli. Something lighthearted, if you please. Anything to banish these accursed halls."

It was a lifeline, something to do other than brood. Kíli appreciated this, and doggedly searched his mind for something to share. Finally, he said, "You know of Ered Luin, the lands were the dwarves of Erebor settled after Smaug ravaged the Lonely Mountain."

"I've heard it spoken of, yes. Hobbits do sometimes have dealings with dwarves."

"Yes. I'd been to the Shire before, once. Ered Luin is green, too, though as you climb into the foothill, everything becomes darker, almost blue. There are trees of all kinds, taller and straighter than columns, and the water is as clear and cold as glass. You'd like it, I think."

"It sounds lovely," Bilbo admitted, sounding far away, as though he were imagining this land at the foot of the mountains.

Kíli didn't have to imagine it. His mind traveled down old paths he knew by heart. "It was lovely, most of the time, but I remember a year when the countryside was beset with a plague of birds."

"Birds?" The hobbit sounded puzzled. No doubt he was imagining gay little things with russet caps who sang at dawn and danced on windowsills where dried bits of berry and toast crumbles had been left out.

"They're called starlings. Awful creatures – territorial, obnoxiously loud, dirty. One year when I was a lad, a huge flock of them migrated into our settlement and the neighboring farmland. Mostly they eat insects, which wouldn't have been so bad, but they also pick seed out of the ground, fruit off the vine. Aggressive beasties, too. They drove Fíli mad."

Bilbo, who had rarely seen the more easy-going of the brothers at any higher pitch of emotion than slightly disgruntled, seemed to be finding this difficult to imagine. He gave a little cough.

"I know what you're thinking," Kíli said. "He does have an unusually even temper for a Durin. Uncle always claims to despair of me, but between the two of us, Bilbo, I've always thought it was Fíli he understood least."

Bilbo ventured, "Perhaps he's more like his mother?"

It was a struggle not to laugh aloud. "Never was there a dwarf more vehement than Dís, daughter of Thráin."

"So he's the odd duck. It's funny, I would never have thought it. He's so –" Bilbo seemed to be searching for a word that felt appropriate. Finally, he found it: "Dutiful."

A shadow came over Kíli's face. "Fíli has always worked hard to meet expectations." Then he huffed. "But don't go thinking him a paragon of virtue! He's bossy, for one thing. As dogged as a cur when he's made up his mind, and he has the obnoxious tendency to tell you where you went wrong only _after_ you've found yourself in a mess. Not to mention he sulks like a badger –"

He couldn't have known it, but on the other side of the door, Bilbo was grinning at his familial tone, which was both aggravation and affection at once. Abruptly, he asked, "Why did he hate the birds?"

"What?"

"The birds," Bilbo clarified. "You said they drove him mad."

"Oh, it was his hair," Kíli said. "The color, you know; it catches the light out under the sun, and starlings are mad for anything that shines. They pecked him bloody trying to steal bits of it for their nests. Funniest thing I ever saw, him waving his arms around while a dozen of those ugly black birds flapped all around him, clicking their beaks at his head."

"That's awful!"

The cough which covered his laughter made it clear that Kíli had no real sympathy. "Oh, don't worry," he said. "I came to his rescue. Must have shot a thousand of those birds that year. Best archery practice a lad could ask for. Never mind that I got a shilling for every bird I killed. The local farmers practically lined my pockets with silver. Sometimes more than once for the same bird."

"How wicked of you!"

"My services were rendered for the good of all. It only stands to reason that each should reward me equally! Of course, Fíli wouldn't let me get away with it. He forced me to give the extra coins back before Thorin found out and tanned my hide."

"A voice of reason," Bilbo ventured.

"Yes," Kíli said, and once again the back of his head thumped against the door. "Though he's less skilled at keeping his own neck out of the fire. If he was, he would have fewer scars."

There was much packed between the lowered tone and the word 'scar', but Bilbo was too polite to venture where he had no business. Instead, he said, "Take heart, Kíli. We'll rejoin them soon. And in the mean time –"

"In the meantime, may the Maker keep them safe," finished Kíli. After that, silence ruled the halls once more until only the echo of the underground spoke, and both souls were left stranded with their own lonely thoughts.

* * *

Next Chapter Summary: The journey through the marshes take a deadly turn.


	4. Chapter 4

**Trial of Leadership (4/11)**

* * *

If the Long Marshes were grim and uninviting. As though a pall of ill omen was over their journey, a steady rain began, lashing their faces until they were chaffing in every part and half-drowned from flying water. Mud became their new enemy. It oozed between their fingernails, crept up their calves, and clung like an itchy second skin. The deluge eventually stopped, but that was when the insects emerged to take their breakfast; clouds of midges, trains of mosquitoes, and huge biting dragonflies with wings like dark jewels. One dug its jaws into Ori's scalp, and he let loose a howling curse so vehement that everyone, himself included, stared in shock.

Finally, Nori clapped him on the back. "You can be glad Dori didn't hear that!"

Ori hung his head, but Fíli was secretly amused and tried to cheer him. "Not to worry, Ori. We're not lads any longer, and what's an oath or two between grown dwarves?"

"I could be bow-backed and covered with wrinkles and Dori would still scold until my ears burned," Ori sorrowed.

"It's the way of things," Fíli said. "The old oppress the young, but not forever."

The sounds of the marsh – the harsh cries of the herons, the shivery hiss of water rushing in its channels, the droning of the flying insects – created a veil of confidences. Ori looked up from beneath his lashes and muttered, "I don't think you've ever been young, Fíli."

Fíli shook his head wonderingly. On the contrary, he sometimes felt as though he would never stop finding himself in hot water with his elders or hearing about how little he knew of the world. He rubbed his backside rueful in memory of past chastisements. If only Ori could have witnessed some of those inglorious moments, he wouldn't think Fíli so mature. Fíli might not have a Dori, but he knew the struggle to be seen as a dwarf in his own right only too well.

 _'And there is that added pressure,'_ he thought, _'that you must be more than a dwarf. You must be a Durin, and – if a kingdom there be for us – you must also be a prince.'_

It wasn't something he dwelt on often. Mostly just when he was maudlin over too many pints, Kíli giggling drunkenly into his armpit, or on nights when he couldn't sleep. Also during long sessions with Balin going over the old laws, or when his uncle was oppressed with the weight of past griefs and summoned him before a fire. Or when he stopped outside a little thatched hut beside a forge and felt a twinge of disappointment that such a simple life could never be his. A rueful smile plucked at the edges of his lips. Okay, so perhaps it was on his mind a fair amount. Still, one's destiny was set like runes in stone, and Fíli had no time for futile attempts to escape his own.

As the day wore on, they made slow, winding progress, fighting the sucking earth and the rawness of their nerves. Nori took point, feeling along carefully with the toe of his boot. Dwalin strode, eyes scanning warily, though the damned fog was back and visibility was poor. Close behind him came Ori with uncertain steps, then Bofur and Bifur. Fíli brought up the end, his hand on his little knife. Eventually the plodding became monotonous and they were lulled into complacency.

Bofur made use of his captive audience. "So, there were these two miners," he began, ignoring Dwalin's groan. "They were caught in a cave in, and one of the miners was struck on his head by a falling stone. He laid on the ground, his eyes glazed with a gash on his head weeping blood."

Bifur shuddered, as though some memory had penetrated his foggy mind. Ori shivered, too, drawn into the tale by his own imagination.

Bofur continued, "Soon, a party of rescuers reached them, the light of their lanterns barely showing between a crevice in the fallen rocks. The trapped miner cried out to them, 'Help, we're trapped in here, and I think my friend is dead.' His rescuers, who knew they wouldn't be able to dig them out for some time, told him what to do: 'Now, lad,' they said. 'Calm down and listen. The first thing you need to do is make sure he's dead.' They could barely see a thing, but they heard a grunt and then the sound of a heavy pick axe being thrust into the ground. For a moment, there was nothing but panting, but then they heard the trapped miner speak again: 'Okay,' says he. 'What next?'"

There was a long pause in which nothing was heard except the infernal insects, and then Nori guffawed so loudly that a flock of birds took wing in a sudden, startled flight.

"That's terrible!" Ori exclaimed, paled by the implication. Bifur seemed to agree, He jabbed at his cousin, but Bofur was expecting it and jumped clear, cackling as he did so. Unfortunately, this knocked him into Ori, who lost his balance. His arms pinwheeled, and though Dwalin made a grab for him, Ori still fell backward and landed on his backside in a black pool.

Fíli just stopped himself from running a hand through his hair in exasperation. He opened his mouth to ask if Ori needed a hand, but the sound caught in his throat. Although the place Ori had fallen looked exactly like any other shallow pool around them, something was clearly wrong. Like a sucking fist, the muck had gripped his hands and belly and chest. Already submerged up to his waist, he flailed, but his feet found no purchase. Horror paralyzed all of them the duration of a candle flicker, and then with a cry, Nori shoved past Dwalin and went to his knees, his arm outstretched over the mire.

For a mire it was; there was no longer any uncertainty about that. Only Bofur's grip on Nori belt saved him when the ground beneath his knees gave way. Quickly, they shuffled back onto more certain footing, leaving Ori stranded, floundering just out reach. "Nori!" he cried, his chest heaving. "Help me, please!"

"He's stuck," Dwalin said numbly, drawing his hand over his scalp. "There's no getting him now. There's not a stick of wood for miles." It was true. The marsh had no trees, no logs or branches. Only long grass and stunted shrubbery grew here, along with clumps of water plants, reeds and cattails. None would have the strength to draw Ori out.

Fíli had seen a pony sucked into a mire once. Men and animals were drawn down by their own exertions and suffocated, and very little could save them short of being pulled free. Ori made a very low, pitiable sound, and Fíli felt his throat constrict. He could not let his friend die here.

Pulling Nori back, he went down on his hands at the very edge of the pit, pressing against it with his hands. To his surprise, they were not immediately taken down in a watery slurry. Rather, the surface squelched with an imprint of his hand, more like a great heap of water logged mud than peat. Relief filled his chest so suddenly he almost laughed. "Mister Dwalin," he said. "I think I can get to him; it's not as bad as we feared. Just keep a hold of my legs, would you?"

He didn't give the older dwarf a chance to argue, but flattened and pulled himself on his forearms onto the mire. He sank immediately, but the muck was denser than it looked. His distributed weight wasn't as great a burden, and he was able to creep forward until he was right in front of Ori, now sunk almost to the chin.

"Hullo, Ori," he said, taking a moment to catch his breath. Fíli could see Ori's hands clenching and unclenching just beneath the surface, as though he were fighting the urge to seize his rescuer. Fíli was glad for his restraint. Their situation was precarious, and an overhasty movement by either of them might end in double tragedy. With an effort, he reached down the length of the younger dwarf, groping until he caught hold of Ori's leather belt. The mud was sticking to his cheek by the time he had it, and he smiled fiercely in triumph. To Ori, he said, "Listen, now. The trick of it is spreading your weight out over the surface. If we can pull you out, I think you should be able to crawl to the others. Are you ready to give it a try?"

There was an audible gulp as Ori searched for his voice, but eventually he croaked out a credible, "Y-yes."

"Good," Fíli encouraged, strengthening his grip. "Crawl forward while I pull. Ready back there, Dwalin? Now!"

At first there was a completely lack of progress. The muck held fiercely despite their combined efforts, but Fíli didn't give up, not even when his nose and mouth were covered and his fingers grew numb.

Grunting with effort, Fíli said, "You're going to have to wiggle your hips a bit." Then, grasping the humor in the situation, he grinned past his mask of oozy mud. "Imagine there's a pretty lass nearby and you're trying to get her attention." Despite the life threatening nature of their position, Ori looked as though the very idea might send him into full blown panic. Chagrined, Fíli amended, "Never mind, Ori. Just shift back and forth if you can."

Ori's expression crumpled. "F-fíli –"

Sensing how frightened he was, Fíli spoke for only their ears. "It's alright, Ori. We'll have you out, easy as pulling a tick, so don't be afraid. Are you ready to try again? One, two, _three –_ "

This final effort was enough. There was a sound like a great, muddy gulp, and Ori's body lurked. Disgorged onto his belly, he scrabbled forward, and as soon as he was within range, his brother seized him and dragged him to safety. Smiling with relief, Fíli lay panting for breath until there was a jerk on his ankles. Before he knew it, Dwalin was standing him on his feet and asking in a voice heavy with concern, "Are you alright, Laddie?"

Fíli drew his palm over his mouth and nose, whipping some of the oily mud away. His wounded arm, the one the spider had bitten, was trembling. He was also queasy, but that was hardly surprising judging by the taste in his mouth. He felt as though he had swallowed half the bog.

"I'm fine," he said and sought Ori, whose creased face was so pale that the freckles stood out like speckles on an egg. "Alright, Ori?"

His timorous nod was interrupted by Bofur, who said, "Alls well that ends well." He lurched back when Nori came after him, putting out his hands feebly. "I didn't mean any harm!"

Dwalin was no less angry. "Even so, harm you caused. Your clowning could have gotten them killed!"

Fíli couldn't help but agree. They had allowed themselves to grow incautious, and the cost had nearly been too high. "We can't underestimate this place," he said. "It may not carry an axe, but it's just as dangerous as any foe."

Much to his relief, these words seemed to relieve the blatant hostility, bringing thoughtful nods rather than raised fists. Fíli moved to the front. "I think I'll lead for a while," he said, sensing that Nori was in no fit state to pick out their path. The first new drop of rain landed on the bridge of his nose.

* * *

Author's Note: Some of you probably recognized the joke Bofur tells as a version of "the funniest joke in the world", which is generally credited to comedian Spike Milligan. It was just too perfectly morbid not to put in Bofur's mouth.

Next Chapter Summary: Fíli and the others reach the river, but how will they get across?


	5. Chapter 5

**Trial of Leadership (5/11)**

* * *

"This is what you get for taking directions from a wizard," Nori complained as he was forced to give a particular forceful jerk to free his boot. "A villain will waylay you, and a crook can be trusted to take your last penny, but a wizard always has ulterior motives."

Fíli didn't bother arguing. Privately, he _did_ think Gandalf had motives of his own; motives which only peripherally had to do with restoring the dwarven kingdom of Erebor. He felt certain they were _good_ motives, because despite his reputation for being a barer of bad news, Gandalf was good. Fíli just wasn't sure if it was _good_ for them. Thorin felt the same; ' _Gandalf is true to his own machinations, and as long as they work alongside our own, then we can trust him.'_

Fíli asked, _'And if they don't?'_

His uncle had gazed darkly toward the West. ' _Then we'll be on our own.'_

"That's not really fair, is it?" Ori said. "After all, he had the key and the map. If it weren't for Mister Gandalf, we wouldn't even be on this quest."

"Exactly," Nori agreed with emphasis. "And what does he get out of it?"

"A share of the treasure."

"But what does a wizard want with treasure?"

"The same as anyone else, I'd wager," Bofur put in, rubbing his hands together in true mercenary spirit.

Fíli eyed the former tinkerer skeptically. Bofur missed no opportunity to fantasize about the dragon's gold, but no one who had spent any time with him could believe it was his _only_ motive. Fíli glanced at Bofur as he cheerful stomped through the swamp, and felt a surge of pride that such folk followed his uncle. It was loyal, honest dwarves like Bofur and his kin that would make Erebor strong again, he was sure if it.

Nori, meanwhile, was still grumbling about the unreliability of wizards. "I'll meet you in the mountains, he says. Stay on the path and you'll be fine, he says. I'd like to know one time where he's lead us right. We should stop taking advice from that balmy old harbinger, that's what I say."

"Nobody asked you," Dwalin said with a heated glare.

Thankfully, Bifur interrupted before an argument could begin, calling to them from the front of the line. Fíli's head darted up, fearful of some new catastrophe, but though Bifur was submerged up to his knees, he seemed unharmed.

"What is it?" asked Dwalin, coming up behind Fíli.

The blow that Bifur had once taken to the head had done more than leave him maimed. It had also muddled his speech. However, he could use iglishmêk, and so it was with gestures that he made known their newest obstacle: the path had ended.

"We're lost again?" Ori cried in dismay. The gnarled depth of Mirkwood still figured large in their nightmares, and the idea of repeating any part of it was horrible.

Vibrating with nerves, Nori declared, "I knew it! Did I not say we should make our way south, along the edge of the forest?"

"That's not exactly what you said," Ori spoke, though his hands were trembling. "Besides, Fíli thinks this was the best way. He said –"

"Oh, hush," Nori snapped back. Fear was making his temper sharp. "What do any of your know about life in the wilds. All of you stuck up inside the Blue Mountains, plinking around like marbles in a jar, so smug and content with your airs and graces and brass candle sticks –"

This awoke Dwalin's ire, which was never far off the horizon these days. His fingers flexed, as though stretching around his absent knuckle-dusters. "I've had just about enough of you."

"Now, now," Bofur tried, ever the peacemaker, but the two combatants turned on him so fiercely he shut his mouth.

Fili gazed around, hoping to see some path they'd missed. He knew by the sun which way the river lay, but it wasn't much use, for a straight path was impossible. The water level rose and fell; paths that had been dry became covered by water, while others that had laid submerged asserted themselves in puzzling array. Worse, the fumes off the black water clouded Fíli's head, not with hallucinations, but with a lassitude that made it feel as though he were moving through liquid.

He remembered his uncle's horrible blankness in Mirkwood when they lost their way, and his stomach churned with understanding. It was terrible to have no answers. ' _What will we do?'_

The others were arguing. Ori was making a valiant attempt to keep Nori away from Dwalin, but that didn't stop the former thief from jabbing his finger over his brother's shoulder and declaring, "I joined this party to follow Thorin, not to listen to you, you _dizhat-turg ozodl."_

Ori gasped. "Nori!"

Dwalin's knuckles whitened. "Come here, you wretched coward. It's long past time we settled this."

Nori surged forward. He made an ugly gesture, unambiguous and entirely past the pale of restraint. "Gladly! And would I had a sword to finish it, too."

Fíli lost his temper. It was as though a great pressure had built up inside him, until finally he could contain it no more. He grabbed two handfuls of mud from beneath his feet and flung them into the combatant's faces.

"Stop squabbling!"

His roar and the shock of his assault accomplished what he hoped. Everyone froze. Dark mud rolled down the side of Dwalin's nose, and Nori's jacket was splattered with it. Fíli seethed at them, not trusting himself to speak. Only when he was certain that he had mastered his temper did he say simply, "We'll have to go back."

And with them still staring, he began walking in the direction they came, his shoulders straight and proud. He did not give himself room to doubt that they would do as he said. He lead.

And, thank Mahal the Maker, they followed.

* * *

Swift and brown, the river boiled. From the peeks and whirlpools, Fíli knew that unseen rocks and other dangers were hidden beneath the turbulent waters – waters more turbulent than he would have expected at this time of year. Looking at the surging current, he wasn't quite dismayed, yet as an obstacle it was a considerable one. Dwarves weren't powerful swimmers at the best of times, and this was a passage that none but the most foolhardy would attempt.

Bofur whistled low, clearly as impressed as Fíli by the whirling eddies. "Now that's a dip I would rather avoid," he said. "And as filthy as I am, that's saying something."

Nori peered down the embankment, his face grim. "One toe in there and you'll never need a bath again." He glanced up, catching Fíli's eye. "That's a drowning river."

Fíli looked across and could just see the far bank. It looked far more wholesome than the ground they currently stood upon. There, under the friendly branches of sheltering woodland, they would be able to travel more easily. However, to get to that place of safety, the river would have to be forded. "I wish I knew the area better," he said with regret. "The maps we studied have been wrong so far. What chance of a nearby crossing?"

He spoke in equal parts to Dwalin, who had been east of Mirkwood before, and Nori, whose woodland experience was the most extensive. Both looked grave as they considered the puzzle they'd been set. Before they could speak their piece, however, they heard Bofur calling to them from downriver. "Oye! We found a place to get across!"

Fíli's relief was short lived, for when he reached the Bofur and his cousin, they were facing a deep gully. Gurgling far below, the river raced through the narrow passage cut between the high banks. And precariously traversing this place was a fallen tree, its scarred hulk black with dampness and scaly with lichen. Fíli felt as though is heart had suck down into his boots, and he said with dismay, "This is it?"

Ever one to find a cheerful outlook, Bofur said, "It's not that bad. Supposing we fell, it would be just a short plunge into the water, and then we bash our heads open on the rocks! Splat." He shivered his fingers. "Blood everywhere."

Ori's complexion had turned bloodless, and he demanded, "Why do you do that?"

Nori was considering more practical aspects. Scratching the patchy stubble on his chin, he commented, "This tree has been here a long time. See how the branches had been stripped off by the current? If flood and the turn of the seasons haven't loosed it yet, I'd say it's probably solid enough to take our weight." He glanced at Dwalin. "Perhaps you should test it. You're the heaviest."

Dwalin's glare was sharp as a honed edge, prompting Fíli to step forward. "If you think it will hold, Nori, then that's good enough for me. I'll go first."

There was a shiver of uncertainly that went through the whole group. Suddenly hesitant, Nori suggested, "Perhaps we should scout ahead, see if we can find another route."

Dwalin took a firm hold on Fíli's arm, the one that pained him. "I don't know about this. Suppose that old hulk gives way?"

"Then all those dunkings that Kíli gave me over the years will come in handy," Fíli answered, thinking of lazy days playing with his brother. Kíli excelled at swimming. ' _You would do better if you weren't scared of drowning,'_ Kíli often teased, and Fíli would scoff: ' _Maybe, if you weren't so fond of holding my head under until I've swallowed half the lake.'_ The echoing voices from the past combined with Dwalin's bruising grip, and Fíli shifted restlessly. Hoping for a swift departure, he extended his forearm, offering a warrior's handshake. "You don't mind being rearguard, do you, Mister Dwalin?"

"No," his old mentor said slowly. "No, I don't."

Ori was wringing his hands in a much more open show of concern. "Be careful, Fíli."

Fíli approached the fallen trunk and hopped aboard. It took his weight, barely even creaking. Atop the makeshift bridge, he stretched out his arms for balance, for the footing was treacherous. It was wet from the hissing water below, and there were long, smooth patches where the bark had sloughed off, leaving the sides slick and bare. He took another step, this one away from the shore. One more and he was over the roar of the river, which spit angry flecks of stinging water onto his downturned face. The toe of his boot scraped at the next step, sliding abruptly to the right. Hastily, he bent his knees, catching himself before he could fall. He heard the breathing of his friends on the bank, and Bofur called, "Steady!"

Step by careful step, until finally he was on the other side. He stole a moment to put his hand over his pounding heart to reassure himself of his own survival, and then he turned back toward the opposite bank. "Your turn, Bifur!"

Bifur crawled upon his hands and knees, his long beard dragging, but he made it safely. Bofur, on the other hand, no longer seemed interested in morbid joking. When he hesitated at the edge, Dwalin had to give him a shove. He had turned the color of porridge before he was halfway across, sweat popping out on his face in spite of the mist off the river.

Fíli encouraged him, "That's it, Bofur; you're almost there." He stretched out his arm, ready to take the other dwarf by the hand.

That was when the tree made a strange, long sound, like a door on neglected hinges. It was their only warning. With a lurch, the tree turned, rotating more than a handbreath in the space of a second. Bofur gave a cry as he fell, his fearful caterwaul overlapped by Nori's shout. Part of Fíli's mind registered that Ori had been climbing onto the far side when the tree moved and had also slipped into the river. There was no time to think of him, however. Already, Fíli could see Bofur's dark head disappearing downstream.

Taking only the time to strip off his boots, Fíli jumped and slammed into cold, deep water. Bubbles hissed by his ear, and then he was floating on his back, feet thrust forward, carried along by the mighty current.

Keeping his head back, he assessed his position. Soon he caught a glimpse of Bofur, an unnatural blur in the otherwise fluid river, and he took a breath before turning himself and swimming strongly in that direction. He felt himself shoved over smooth stones, bashed more than once into the blunt edges of others. Finally, he felt a matted plait and seized it with all his strength. Somehow, he managed to get his arm around the other dwarf's chin and forced both their head's above water.

Bofur did not kick or struggle, and Fíli didn't know if he was breathing. A wave swept over them, and they were momentarily submerged. The scrambled sounds of water filled Fíli's ears, but he forced himself to stay still. Dwarves were dense; their bones were heavy, neigh unbreakable, and covered with knotty muscle. However, they did have enough buoyancy to eventually be drawn up into the air as long as they didn't panic. Finally, after what seemed like far too long, they breeched the surface with a dazzling shattering of light and air.

Fíli gasped. He knew he must reach the bank soon. If they didn't, deadly rapids might drop out from under them or a submerged tree limbs could tow them under and drown them. These fears gave him the strength to kick. Slowly he angled toward shore, keeping an almost strangling grip on Bofur, until finally he felt silt and loose stones under his feet.

He hadn't wallowed long in the shallows before someone blundered out to meet them, kicking up great splashes of water. Bifur, who was panting so hard that he was practically sobbing, took firm hold of his cousin. Bofur coughed, murky water dribbling down his chin. He raised a feeble hand, rested it on the arm holding him. "Steady now. I may have a few bones that aren't broken."

Fíli, still on his hands and knees in the water, choked, too strangled to laugh. His limbs felt leaden, and he was thankful for the helping hand that drew him up and led him toward the shore. He felt the weight of Dwalin's gaze, heavy with concern. Fíli barely had his feet on solid ground before Bifur turned with thunderous visage and strode up to him. Then Fíli was being crushed, his abused ribs protesting as the old veteran embraced him with the strength of a bear.

The whiskery chin brushed against his neck, his gravely voice muttering in a lost, wavering tone _, "_ _Uzbadê, khamânê ai-mênu_ _."_

Fíli needed no translation, though the words were so mangled by emotion they were even more unintelligible than usual. Drawing up an arm, Fíli patted Bifur on the back. "Ah, your welcome, Bifur."

"Oh, my aching body," moaned Bofur. He burped, causing water to dribble from his mouth and mucus to ooze form his nose. He rubbed his moustache miserably. "I think I would rather have been brained against the rocks."

The heavy undergrowth which populated this side of the river rustled, parting as they were joined by their other friends. Waterlogged but seemingly unhurt, Ori cried out, "You're alright! Aren't you?"

"We're fine," Fíli confirmed, and finally let out the breath he'd been holding since the moment he put his foot on the trunk of that blasted tree. A long shadow stretched across his face, cast there by the sun setting behind the long trees. "But we better get a fire started. Otherwise, it's going to be an uncomfortable night."

* * *

Author's Note: This seems like as good a time as any to promote the webpage of David Salo, who contributed to the neo-khuzdul used in the Hobbit films. It's called Midgardsmal, and most of my teeny tiny language references are derived from the linguistic work he was good enough to share.

Next Chapter Summary: The time has come for Bilbo and the others to make their own escape from Mirkwood.


	6. Chapter 6

**Trial of Leadership (6/11)**

* * *

The long nights and days of waiting finally came to an end for Kíli. On a night when the prison warden imbibed too much wine, Bilbo, their vigilant friend, stole the keys right from his pocket. Kíli would not soon forget the scrap of those keys in the lock, nor the sight of his uncle. Kíli stood on shaky legs and took in the tangled hair, the lined face, and bit his lip. He had feared... Well, he had feared much, and though Thorin was only one of the two he most wished to see, that firm, familiar hand pressing his shoulder lifted a great burden from his heart.

One gruff question was all they had time for: "Are you well?" Bilbo fidgeted in the background, shifting from bare foot to bare foot and gazing with trepidation toward the sounds of the revelry taking place above them. Faint laughter reached down, music, clinking glasses. Thorin's eyes never left his face until Kíli nodded, his throat too tight for words.

One by one, they freed the others. Bewildered Bombur, belt cinched tight around his diminished belly. Balin, with a thousand new wrinkles around his eyes. Fuming Óin and Glóin, cross as hornets after their long confinement. And last, Dori. He staggered out as soon as the door was open, his mouth already shaped around a cry that echoed down the corridor, high and shrill: "Ori!"

Thorin seize him by the throat. "We are in an enemy stronghold. You will be quiet. Do you understand me?"

Eyelids that were swollen from much grief gave passage to two fate tears. Dori choked, "Thorin, I have to find them."

Everyone wilted, for they had all heard that their comrades were missing. "Dori, I've been searching for ages. I swear to you, they aren't here," Bilbo said earnestly.

Dori's pitch heightened. "They may be in places that you haven't been. There are more of us, we could spread out –"

Kíli read the strain in his uncle's expression and knew that Thorin wanted nothing more than to agree to a search, but he would not indulge a vain hope. "No one is going to separate from the others. We have a very small opportunity for escape, and we are taking it."

He thrust the grieving dwarf toward his nephew, and Kíli reluctantly took the Dori by the arm. They made their way down to the lowest part of the stronghold, where the Forest River could be heard whispering beneath a trap door. Creeping past the sleeping elves, they hunched behind a cache of barrels, neatly corralled and ready for departure. There, Bilbo told them what he intended. It was mad, and Kíli feared a mutiny when the hobbit explained his scheme in whispered tones. But this diminished group of dwarves had no fight left in them; they merely stared with grave faces. Thorin dipped his chin.

Packed into the confines of a barrel lined with straw, Kíli breathed shallowly as the dark lid eclipsed even candlelight. There was a period of miserable waiting, and then they were serenaded by the songs of the elves as they flung the barrels onto their sides and rolled them to the hatch. Then there was a weightless plunge, his soundless scream, and the nightmare journey began. Soon Kíli was aware of only three things: the oppressive confines of his vehicle, the leaking of water, and the odor of damp straw.

Eventually he subdued into a kind of stupor. His mind wandered then, back upon paths which he and Fíli had shared: the cottage of their earliest life at the edge of the wilds; the warm glow of the forge and the sharp, hot noises heard and felt with the mussed senses of a very young child. Their mother's overwrought voice, often harsh in those times and demanding; much sadness, no little fear, often deprivation, but always Fíli. Fíli to tuck the blanket around them on the pallet they shared, Fíli's shoulders, strong enough to carry him in a sling.

After Thorin came and took them to Ered Luin, the memories grew brighter. Green, shadow-dappled woods, cool and filled to the brim with things to know and see and taste. Other dwarves to guide and nurture, so that the burden of survival was not so great. Fíli remained solitary and self-contained, his essential character already set, but Kíli seized his new freedoms and grew as boisterous as any young dwarf.

 _'More impetuous than is good for him.'_ He could hear the words of his mother as she sat mending a tear in his shirt. She spread it out, frowning. ' _Would that he is not impaled before he is grown_.'

Fíli had looked at Kíli and wondered, _'Grown?'_ A tussle followed, one of the many times they wrestled, testing strength against strength with playful good will.

But the sweet memory led into another, when he was very young. He was suckling on his forefinger, which was oozing blood at the nail bed, and asking in a voice filled with trepidation, _"Fíli, what way?"_ He looked around the unfamiliar terrain. It was twilight, and the branches were becoming black and threatening.

His brother stretched his arm around Kíli's shoulders. _"Don't worry. We may need to climb a tree and wait for morning, but then I'm sure we can find our way back."_

 _"But we fell so faaar,"_ Kíli protested. Another thought occurred, and he shuddered. _"Uncle said we're not to go so far."_

 _"We were wrong,"_ Fíli agreed, _"and we'll have to take our licks for it, but that drop was an accident."_ He paused, brow tense and wrinkled. _"Are you afraid?"_

Kíli felt his lip trembling. Around him, owls were already calling in their eerie voices. Every fern seemed to move, suggesting the presence of an unseen creature. Kíli quailed, but then he looked at Fíli's calm face. Fíli wouldn't let anything happen to them. Fíli would keep them safe. He gripped his older brother's hand. _"No, I'm not afraid."_

Inside the barrel, Kíli opened his eyes. He could hear water moving around him, but forward momentum had stopped. He didn't know how much longer he hunched inside the barrel, only it seemed an eternity before the lid finally scrapped and Bilbo's face peeked inside. The hobbit gave a gusty sigh of relief. "Kíli! I was so worried. Come on, now, lean to the side!"

With help, Kíli crawled out of the barrel, though every joint protested. He panted, savoring the fresh air which was so incredibly cool on his swollen face. On the bank, he collapsed for what seemed a long time, but that infernal Bilbo was soon shaking his clothes. "Come on, Kíli. We don't have long before dawn, and I need you."

Somehow between the two of them they found the others. Kíli's strength soon returned, which was more than could be said about the others. Bombur lay spread-eagled, Glóin curled up beside him. Though coherent, Balin had taken a worrying knock to the head. "I'm alright, I'm alright," he muttered. Óin was attempting an examination even though his ears were so clogged with water that he was more deaf than usual.

Kíli sought Thorin, and saw the dark figure walking downriver. As he followed, he passed Dori, whose eyes were fixed on the middle distance. Bilbo was crouched beside him. "Dori, please don't worry. I'm sure we'll find everyone. Won't you say something?"

There was no response.

Thorin had stopped at the edge of the river delta, and when Kíli came to his side, he saw a mirror of stars glinting off a vast, dark immensity of water. Far off in the distance, he could just make out pinpricks of orange light, too stationary to be a reflection. His fingers ran slowly through his hair, and he said, "Lake-town."

"The beginning of the end," intoned Thorin in a voice too solemn for what should have been cause for celebration. He nodded toward a towering pitch-black shadow on the horizon. "And there is the Mountain."

Kíli thought that when they reached this point his spirit would soar like the ravens of Erebor, straight to the Mountain he knew only in his heart. He had thought his whole being would flame as a forge's fire did, that his doubts would melt away, and that he would feel the utter surety that Thorin seemed to possess when he spoke the name of their lost home. Instead, he found his gaze drawn back towards their ill companions, toward Dori's blank stare.

Bilbo padded up on silent feet. "Thorin? I didn't get a chance to tell you before, but I found something other than keys tonight." He reached into his once-fine jacket and withdrew an object which was as familiar to Kíli as his own bow.

"Fíli's knife!" Kíli exclaimed, eagerly grasping it.

"Before they turned to their wine, I heard the warden say a hunting party came upon it, stuck in the carcass of a spider on the eastern edge of Mirkwood."

"So it is possible that they escaped."

Hope, that traitorous emotion, spread like spark falling on a bed of pine needles. Kíli turned over the blade, one his brother had crafted and carried all the way form the Blue Mountains. ' _Why so many_?' he had once asked, and his brother winked. ' _One can never be too armed_ , _little brother_.' For a single moment, Kíli clenched his hand around the pommel before tucking it carefully into his belt.

Bilbo spread his hands. "Even if Fíli found his way out of the forest, do we dare believe that they're all together? Perhaps they were separated."

"No, they're together," said Kíli, as certain as if he could stretch himself across the leagues that separated him from his brother. Fíli would not have gone on alone.

Thorin stared at the city on the water. To any other, he would seem a figure made of stone, untouched and unfeeling, but Kíli had known him in moments like these. Moments when the part of him that answered to 'uncle' warred with the part that was 'Thorin, son of Thráin, son of Thrór'. Kíli wasn't certain which portion won when finally he fixed them both under a stern eye. "Get everyone ready to leave. We go on to Lake-town."

* * *

Far from the forest, on the banks of another river, a different group of dwarves made camp. The fire was probably a bad idea, yet autumn had come: spirals of fall color pervaded overhead, and the unyielding earth no longer retained the mellow warmth of day. Even stripped of their wet clothing and huddled close to the flames, they still shivered. Bofur let loose an enormous sneeze. He was wearing a borrowed tunic and Bifur's boots, but that didn't stop him from complaining, "I feel like a rag hung out to dry."

Bifur responded by digging an elbow into his cousin's ribs. He'd been acting this way since the first relief had worn off. Not even jokes or pleading had sweetened his mood, though Bofur had already tried at least a dozen times.

He made another attempt at reconciliation: "Really, Bifur; you're acting as cross as an old bear. It's not as though I fell on purpose. I nearly _died_. Couldn't you be a little more forgiving?"

"By my mind, he has a right to be upset," Dwalin commented. "You _would_ have died if you hadn't been dragged out of that river. Myself, I don't know if I would have gone to the trouble."

Bofur snorted. "I see how it is. Just let old Bofur sail away, no need to lift a finger. Dearly beloved, we gather in memory of a departed soul ( _who, for want of better friends, died before his time_ ) – Ow!" Another jab from his cousin cut Bofur off, and the scene devolved into bickering.

Fíli watched, too tired to contribute. He held his arm very close to his body, for the pain was worsening. Perspiration stood out on his forehead from the effort of stoically ignoring it and the headache that was splitting his forehead in two. He put his weary head down and listened to Nori and Ori arguing on the other side of camp.

"First you nearly drown in a bog, then a river. I can see now why Dori barely let you out the door. What were you thinking, climbing up onto that tree while Bofur was still crossing it?" Nori's hands were fluttering in sharp, nervous movements. "Suppose you hadn't grabbed onto the bank? Suppose I hadn't been able to climb down and pull you out before you were swept away?"

"I'm alright, Nori," Ori insisted. He was sitting stiffly with his knees drawn up, his brother's coat draped over his freckly shoulders. The crease between his eyebrows was growing increasingly knotted.

"Alright, he says – you could have been killed!" Nori's agitation was at a fever pitch. "Suppose I'd had to go back to Dori without you. Can you imagine what he would say? He would break down, he would murder me in cold blood, he would –"

Ori's teeth were gritted. "I know, and I'm sorry, but it was an accid –"

"I wish we had never allowed you on this quest!" Nori blurted, "Better you had stayed home with your knitting and ink bottles."

It was too much. His face aflame with anger and humiliation, Ori came to his feet. Heedless of the overlarge coat that only emphasized his unimpressive stature, heedless of his ludicrously frazzled hair, heedless of his bare, blue toes, Ori shouted, "That's not fair! I've just as much right to be here as anyone, and I'm tired of hearing you and Dori prattling on like I need you to tie my bootlaces."

Nori's face purpled. "You were lucky to have someone to tie your bootlaces. I've mended your splintered fingers and injured feelings since you were still eating pap. You could have just as easily been left alone, to make your own way in this world."

"Like you did?" Ori rapped out, sharp and sudden as the strike of a snake.

The implication drained the color from Nori's face, and he said solemnly, "A library suits you better than a battlefield, and by Durin's beard I wish that I had left you there."

The words were a bitter poison to take, and it seemed that Ori couldn't stomach it, for the fire reflected off of eyes that shone like glass. Hoarsely, he whispered, "You're wrong. I fought the trolls as well as any of you. And those awful goblins, and the orcs, and the spiders. I can take care of myself."

"Ha!" Nori blurted.

It was a stroke too far. Ori's was apoplectic, his ears and neck so scarlet that he looked as if he might burst. With a jerky movement, he stalked off into the woods in a racket of crunching leaves. Nori looked like he might follow, but Fíli rose before he could. "Nori," he said. "If you don't mind, I think a little cooling off might be better." He saw Nori's hangdog expression, tinged with all the fear he'd felt that day, and knew his mind. He was Ori's older brother. It could be a terrible weight at times, but Fíli also knew that an anxious scolding would mend nothing. He paused at Nori's slumped shoulder. "It's alright. I'll find him."

A weary nod was his answer, and Fíli disappeared into the shadows between the trees.

He found Ori much as he had in Mirkwood: crouched, with his arms around his stomach. Concerned that he might be feeling sick (Fíli himself had coughed up pints of foul tasting river water), he knelt and lay his hand on the hunched back. "Ori?"

A sharp, congested inhale revealed more than any words. Lifting his head, the younger dwarf dashed his forearm across his eyes and asked defiantly, "Did Nori send you after me?"

Fíli had spent hours immersed in the study of battle strategy, and he was an able diplomat by nature and training, but even more valuable to him now was his years of experience as Kíli's confidant. Since childhood's hour, he had often listened to the painful tirades of his little brother, who like many passionate people had a tendency to be moody and sensitive. Fíli had heard the secret fears, the worries, the confessions, and though them all he had learned more than Balin could ever teach him about tact. Now he chose his approach carefully, sitting back as though he intended to stay awhile. He longed for his pipe, since filling and lighting it would buy more time for the tense figure beside him to calm, but in the end it wasn't needed. Ori had no talent for ire, and when he did not immediately face rebuke or inquisition, his shoulders relaxed.

Folding his legs beneath him, Ori said, "You probably think it's pathetic to run off like that and prove Nori right."

The petulant tone was new to Fíli, who had rarely heard gentle Ori speak in such a way. Thankful for the dark blue patches of sky, Fíli looked up between the trees and scratched his chin. "It's not wrong to walk away from a quarrel," he said. "Though I'd rather nobody stay on their own. We don't know this place."

The strange landscape waxed around them, and Ori drew his tunic closer. "I wasn't thinking of that. I was so angry at Nori –" He trailed off, his head hanging.

"Your brother was badly frightened today," Fíli observed, "and fear can make one say rash things if they have the temper for it."

Ori had the grace to blush. "Do you think I was wrong, saying what I did?"

Fíli shrugged. "Oh, I don't know. Kíli and I have said worse to one another during an argument."

"Have you?" The timidity of the inquiry caused Fíli to raise an eyebrow, and Ori stammered, "Argue, I mean. You and Kíli seem so close."

A bark of laughter burst out of Fíli. He wished it hadn't, for he was so sore, but he couldn't help it. "Argue? Well, not as often as we once did. But we _are_ brothers."

For a while the two meditated. Eventually, though, Ori snapped a twig in half and admitted, "I know I'm not a warrior. I don't have any training, and the most I knew about battle came out of books. Usually I'm a fast learner, and I was so eager to see Erebor for myself. I though that would be enough, but –"

"There's more to being a warrior than swinging an axe," Fíli commented thoughtfully. "I think you do well enough with your catapult, Ori, and it suits you better. Besides, every journey needs a chronicler, don't you think?"

Ori was too cast down to be comforted. All his anger had died away, and now his chin sunk low, along with his spirits. "No. What it needs are more fighters who won't trip and fall into rivers. Maybe Nori is right." He looked at his hands, which were calloused in quite a different way than Fíli's. He narrowed his eyes at the ink stains and little wrinkles. "Maybe I should have stayed home. All I'm good at are scribbles and stitches. It's not very like a dwarf."

 _Not very like a dwarf._ The words struck a chord in Fíli. How often had he taken those very same words out and examined them in the privacy of his own bed, or brooded when disappointment or failure laid him low. Everywhere he went, he was watched for signs that he exemplified his blood line, and he often felt the heat of judgment on his back. Tonight that heat created a spark, and Fíli was suddenly angry. ' _What do they know?'_ he thought, and before he could think better of it, he leaned over and blurted into Ori's ear: "Thorin could get lost in a bucket. We tie a bell on his saddle horn when he goes out to ride alone."

Ori stared, unsure what to do with the revelation that the famed Thorin Oakenshield was sometimes fitted out like a wandering cow. After a moment, though, understanding dawned. "Dori can't abide ale. Once, he drank some at a tavern and threw up all over a pretty dwarf lass, and she wouldn't speak to him again."

"My brother can put an arrow through a squirrel's eye, but for years he could barely read a word of Khuzdul. He refused to sit down to a lesson unless soundly spanked, and often fell asleep on top of his books."

"Nori wails like a lass when he has his hair braided. He accuses us of trying to pull it out by the root, but he can't bare having it undone." Ori grinned feraly. "Goodness knows how he keeps it up when he's off on his own."

"Kíli broke a toe when he tried wielding a war hammer."

"Nori is afraid to go down in a mine."

"Balin sleeps with his cat."

"Dori does tatting."

Forced to reach down deep, Fíli pitched his voice low and imparted, "My mother is a better blacksmith than Mister Dwalin."

Ori's mouth fell open. "No!"

"It's true. He's a master at arms, easily the best weapon's master I've ever had, but he can barely put a head on a nail or a tine on a fork. I've seen him try. Mother taught me everything I know about the forge."

Sitting back on his hands, Ori shook his head in wonder. "I never would have believed it. He's s-so –"

Fíli seized the opportunity. "No one is a sage at everything, Ori," he said, "and that doesn't make them less. So let's have no more of this melancholy brooding over what skills we may lack. There's more than one way to be a dwarf."

The suspicious sheen was back in Ori's eyes, which reflected the starlight too well. In a low voice he asked, "Do you truly think so, Fíli?"

Fíli cleared his throat. Did he dare to believe that he, Fíli son of Dís, had nothing to prove? "I'm not everything I hope to be," he decided. "But I wouldn't trade myself for another. I'll have to be content."

"Sometimes I'm afraid I can't," Ori admitted. "Sometimes I wish I were as strong as Mister Dwalin, or I was good with a sword like, um, – " he trailed off, coughing, before picking back up his thread, "Then no one would doubt me."

How easily Fíli could understand that wish. Maybe then he wouldn't have to endure being called a puppy, or shrink under Dwalin's doubtful eyes. Maybe he would not be rebuked so often by his uncle, who was disappointed when Fíli let himself be overwhelmed by his younger brother's will time and time again. He often pulled Fíli aside to remind him that he was eldest, that his responsibilities were greater, that he should command. But that was not what Ori needed to hear.

"You've had some missteps," Fíli said. "But I don't believe any member of this company is here by coincidence. More and more I come to feel as though we're in the midst of some great undertaking with an importance we don't yet understand." Fíli spoke distractedly, his inner eye on a secret feeling that had been building in his heart since the night Thorin had declared his intentions.

' _My brother, the prophet,'_ spoke Kíli within his mind, and Fíli closed his eyes on the teasing voice. He could hear the jolly laughter, admonishing him for his preoccupation with vague omens and dreams. ' _If you're not careful, you'll end up like Bofur, always professing a new disaster_.'

Ori was still uncertain. "B-but what if I – what if –"

Fíli looked into his young friend's creased face, so earnest, so fearful of failure, and remembered the bold stand he'd taken on that night in Bilbo's dining room, when he'd declared, ' _I'm not afraid. I'll give the dragon a taste of dwarvish iron, right up his jacksie!'_ The passionate declaration, spoke with perhaps more folly than sense, sent a surge of affection to Fíli's heart. "You don't need to prove yourself to me, Ori," he said.

For a long time, Ori didn't speak. When he did, he grasped his hands together and whispered, "I won't let you down, Fíli. I swear it. By Durin's beard –" And here he choked, for he didn't often swear. "I'll play my part to make the quest succeed."

Clapping the younger dwarf on the shoulder, Fíli said, "That's the sprit. But one step at a time, eh?"

"I hope the first steps take us back to Dori," Ori sorrowed. "I really don't like us being apart. He frets, you know?"

Fíli knew. He was fretting some himself. _'Don't find yourself in too much trouble, little brother,'_ he thought. "Perhaps you should first make amends with the brother who is still with you," he suggested.

This brought on a sour expression. Fíli could see that Ori truly wanted things mended, but what he and his brother had in common – their pride – was holding him back. He muttered, "Nori doesn't respect me."

"I don't think it's respect for you he lacks. You've had some close calls, and he's angry with himself for not protecting you. You are, after all, his baby brother."

"Baby," Ori muttered under his breath.

Fíli ruffled his hair, just to watch him bristle. "Alas, it's true, and there's nothing to be done about _that_."

Ori glared at him. "You're just saying that because you're oldest."

"You are correct," Fíli said, but he sobered almost immediately. "Come on, Ori. This journey is full of dangers. Who knows when the last chance for an apology may come?"

The younger dwarf gazed into Fíli's face for a long moment before, finally, he broke down and spoke. "You're right," he admitted, scrubbing his messy ginger hair and sighing. "We're brothers, and I don't want unkind words to be the last thing we say to one another."

* * *

Next Chapter Summary: That fire really wasn't a good idea.


	7. Chapter 7

**Trial of Leadership (7/11)**

* * *

The fire had burned down. Only a tendril of white smoke wafted toward the trees. It wasn't yet dawn, but the sky was lightening already. Fíli opened his eyes. He'd slept poorly, troubled by the pain in his arm and vague dreams about fire on a lake and his brother, weeping a bead of blood. Had that woken him? He looked across the camp and saw Bofur propped up against a tree. He was supposed to be keeping watch, but his eyes were shut, and Fíli could hear his deep breathing. Little wonder, after his drubbing yesterday.

' _I should take his place_ ,' he thought, but he couldn't seem to will his stiff muscles to move. Instead, Fíli turned on his side, fingers crunching against his bed of leaves. An ember gave one last feeble pop and crumbled. He heard the sleepy hoot of an owl. The last of the crickets chirped in chorus. And, very faintly, there was a rhythmic crunching, like a horse's hoof stamping the ground.

This last sound was wrong. Fíli's eyes snapped open wide. He tensed, immediately reaching to his belt for his knife. Now that he was paying attention, he could feel it: the sense of being watched. Someone else was here.

It was like a horrible repeat of Mirkwood and the spiders. This time, he was able to get the entire warning out of his mouth – "Wake up! Ambush!" – but the words were mere commentary, for their attackers were already upon them. Mounted figures bearing pikes and bows and thick, heavy staffs. Their shouts were deafening even without the high squealing of their horses, whose many legs made it seem as though there were hundreds.

Fíli rolled to his feet, ready to defend himself. He thrust his little blade into a thigh as a rider bore down on him and had the satisfaction or hearing the man wail. For they were Men. Fíli could see that through the disorienting mêlée. Tall men with dark hair on horses.

' _But why attack us?_ ' he thought. They had been sleeping in the dirt, wearing rags and carrying sticks and pebbles as weapons. There was no sense in robbing them, no honor in slaying them. Fíli felt the icy rage of battle coming over his thoughts. _'Would you have killed us in our sleep? If so, you've made a grave mistake.'_

The men had clearly expected to find them helpless, but even unarmed, dwarves were not easy to subdue. Dwalin had a branch and swung it with formidable purpose. Bifur and Bofur were armed with rocks, and even as a rider charged, a stone from Ori's slingshot clipped the beast on the flank. It reared, out of control. Fíli seized the opportunity, darting under the flashing hooves to seize the man astride it by the belt and fling him clear. Riderless, the animal bolted, but Fíli stood over the man on the ground with his weapon. He had just thrust the blade under his opponent's chin when a voice called, "Hold!"

In an instant, their attackers withdrew, ending the skirmish with the dwarf company bristling, surrounded by enemies. They were ensconced by at least a dozen formidable-looking opponents. Most were still mounted, the intelligent eyes of their steeds as intent as their masters. One of these men dismounted.

To Fíli, he said, "You will die if you do that."

Fíli could see the arrow points, aimed at his heart. He didn't recognize the style of bow, but at this range they could hardly miss their mark. He also saw Bofur kneeling at the end of a pike, and Bifur had a steady stream of blood dripping into his wild beard. Surrender was their only recourse, or it would have been, if not for a twist of fate.

Fíli gripped the collar of his captive more tightly, until he felt the smooth, clean-shaven throat under his knuckles. "Are you the one leading these men?"

The riders shifted, their horses making quiet noises. The one who had spoken ducked his chin. "I am."

Fíli looked at the boy under his knife, tracing the strong jaw, the distinct hairline, and could see the resemblance. "This is your son."

The man's expression was tumultuous, but still he answered: "Yes."

Fíli tried to read their garb and understand them. The horses wore shaggy coats and simple saddles, which told him these were not Rohirrim. Their clothing was coarse wool without ornament. They had long, angled faces and sharp, wary eyes. Fíli saw shepherds; simple men unlikely to have ulterior motives. Men who might be reasoned with.

His decision made, Fíli stepped back and put his knife in his belt. "My name is Fíli. We're from the Blue Mountains, but we've been lost in the marshes. That's how we came here."

The information, so baldly spoken, stirred both sides of the opposing forces. Dwalin's exclamation of disapproval was audible above even the horsemen, while Nori could be heard rasping, "What are you _doing_?"

Only the man who had claimed to be in charge made no sign of what he felt. He looked at Fíli with whetted eyes that were as grey as his grizzled hair. His leathered face was cut with wrinkles from age and weather. He helped his son to stand before speaking. "The marshes are dangerous, even for those who know what they are doing. What cause do dwarves have for traveling that way?"

"It's falsehood," spat another man, whose eyes flashed with contempt. "Dwarves stay in their mountains or travel south to trade with Gondor. What would they be doing here if they're not thieves or raiders?"

"We're not thieves!" Bofur declared, but Fíli had found something interesting in that exchange, a shift in the expressions of the men when the word 'raiders' was spoken. It might explain much.

Fíli stretched out his arms. "Our appearance should be proof of our words," he said. "We fell into the river. The bridge we were passing over gave way."

The men looked at one another, and their scorn was clear. "Lost in the marshes, and then the river?"

Though he felt his companions stir with indignation, Fíli was determined to keep his temper in check. Wargs, rock giants, goblins, orcs, magical bears, a poisoned wood filled with spiders. The river had been the very least of their problems. What a tale it would all make, he thought. _If_ Ori survived long enough to write any of it down.

"What is your purpose, then, dwarf?" said the lead man.

Without looking, Fíli knew that Dwalin desired him to be silent. Yet if he didn't answer, he was certain it would lead to more violence. Ori, bravely holding his slingshot ready, might fire off a single shot before an arrow struck him. Cornered, Bofur panted. The lives of those two, at least, would be forfeit, to say nothing of the men.

Fíli was also keenly aware that they were at the threshold of his ancestors' ancient homeland. Once they reached the lake, they would be in the foothills of the Lonely Mountain, and as Fíli looked into the cragged faces of these men, he was reminded of the men of Dale. Dale, that city from the stories of his youth, where Dwarvish craftsmanship had been matched by the energy and sagacity of Men. Such men had been allies of the dwarves of Erebor, though dragon fire had forced them, too, to flee. Might not these people also become allies?

He thought, ' _Uncle, I hope you will forgive me if I act wrongly.'_

"What is your name?" Fíli asked.

The leader pressed his lips together, wheels surely turning within his mind. He chose to answer. "My name is Valor. These are the men of my village."

"Men of the North?"

A flicker of something passed over Valor's expression. "Perhaps once. This is our home now. Our father's bones are buried in this place, and our children and animals have been born here. Who are you?"

Fíli didn't hesitate. "I am Fíli, son of Dís, grandson of Thráin, son of Thrór, King Under the Mountain."

A heartbeat of silence, and then the men erupted in mockery. "King Under the Mountain!"

Their ridicule cut Fíli unexpectedly deep. Kíli liked to say he had the patience of a maiden, but it wasn't true. He glanced at his companions and felt sick when he saw their anger and humiliation. Still, he faced those who insulted him and somehow found the ability to speak in a tone unaffected by his true feelings. "You mock me, but I speak the truth."

The man who had called them false dismounted from his horse and strode to join Valor. His curling dark hair was matched by eyes that snapped like dark-coated beetles. "What would a raider know of the truth?"

"Jordon," Valor spoke the man's name, but it did nothing to quell Fíli's accuser. He continued to stare, his gaze challenging.

"You wrongly accuse us," Fíli said. "We're passing through these lands, no more."

Jordon straightened to his full height, which was considerably taller than any of the dwarves. Fíli was used to looming and wasn't intimidated. Still, he had to admit that when it came to situations like this, it nettled, especially when the man taunted, "Going to kill the dragon and reclaim your fabled kingdom, are you?"

Fíli stood with his ruined collar hanging open. The hearty dwarvish leather was fissured and stinking. His boots were held together with shreds of fabric, and his braids and beard were shorn. He could only imagine that he looked worse than a brigand. Certainly he did not have a single trapping of nobility. Yet even so the hot, judgmental glare of this Man rankled him. He tossed his head back and looked Jordon in the eye as he said, "What if we are?"

Stone silence fell. Valor turned sharp, thoughtful eyes on Fíli. "The folk who dwelt under that mountain have been long gone since before my grandfather's time."

Fíli nodded. "That's so. We were headed to Lake-town to meet my uncle and the rest of our party, but we've met with some hard luck. We need aid."

Jordon said, "I think you're a damned lair. But even if we did believe such lunacy, why should we help you?"

That was an interesting question, which Fíli took seriously in spite of the less than gracious way it was set forth. He could tell these people had come through some recent hardship, and dwarves _did_ pay their debts. "Arm us," he decided. "And lead us safely to Lake-town, and when it is in my power to do so, I will repay you ten times any amount we owe."

If silence was a living thing, than this one was a hulking creature of deep shadow. It hung over the gathering and breathed hotly down their necks. Fíli didn't dare look at Dwalin, for he could tangibly feel the weight of his reaction. His tongue remained still, but his stare was like a cruelly barbed tenterhook.

Jordon spoke first. "This is absurd, Valor. Nothing they say is true."

"We don't mean you any harm," Ori spoke up. It was the first time he had spoken, and his voice was high, thin, and stressed. He pleaded, "I don't know what you take us for, but Fíli's not lying."

"I take you for pitiless villains," said Jordon, and though he spoke boldly enough, a note crept into his voice, pain as clear as a vein of silver in the side of a mountain. "The kind that would take and destroy without remorse."

Once again, Fíli wondered ' _Just what happened here? What are these men doing, leaving their herds and families to prowl the forest?_ ' He looked at their sheepskin collars and rudimentary weapons. These men were strong and ready to fight, but they weren't warriors.

Valor spoke this time, looking directly at Fíli. "Tell me. What proof do you have that you aren't a raider or, at best, some deluded fool?"

"You have my word," Fíli said, and before any could scoff, he added, "And you have your son."

The man's hand tightened around his boy's arm. If anything, his expression grew more contemplative. Jordon, however, was having none of it. He stalked forward, drawing a curved blade from his belt as he did so. "The word of a stranger means nothing."

"To a dwarf, one's word is his honor. " Fíli raised his eyebrow. "What is the honor of Men worth?"

It had been a provoking thing to say, and so Fíli expected the lunge. His own dagger flashed, but only so he could turn the knife edge that was angling toward his ribs. He forced the man to overextend, and as his arm went harmlessly past, Fíli grabbed the vulnerable wrist. ' _It's all in the leverage,'_ he repeated the words of an old lesson. ' _Use your low center of gravity to turn a larger opponent's mass against him. Use the hip!_ '

Fíli did, and Jordon went sailing ignobility into the dirt. Still on his feet, Fíli held Jordon's appropriated weapon daintily. It was longer than his own, but the weight was all wrong and the metal felt brittle and sour. "Who made this?" he muttered in disgust. "Do you use it to trim a hedge?"

He threw it at Valor's feet.

Bifur's wordless cry was all the warning Fíli had that something was wrong, and then his head exploded with black spots, like sparks off a forge. For a moment, he was numb, but Ori's shrill voice was soon crying in his ear, "Fíli, are you alright?" That was when the pain rushed in. He groaned, tenderly lifting his hand to his temple. Hot, sticky blood came to his fingers.

"Why you dirty, underhanded pig," an angry voice was bellowing. "Even a dog wouldn't attack when a person's back is turned. You disgraceful, loathsome – "

"Dwalin," Fíli interrupted, though his voice sounded strange to him. He could swear he was underwater, though he knew that wasn't rue. "I'm alright."

"He could have killed you," Bofur said in a voice that was totally unlike him. It shook with anger. "You weren't even looking when he threw that rock."

Fíli glanced at the leaf-strewn forest floor and saw the jagged stone. Then he looked at Jordon, who was glaring around him in defiance. He was flushed, but not just with anger. Too many of his comrades were frowning with disapproval. Fíli felt a bit sorry for him. He'd been humiliated, and he'd acted on an ugly impulse. It didn't speak much to his character, but it wasn't worth anybody dying over. He extended his swollen arm. "Help me up, Ori."

Ori did so eagerly, holding onto him when his knees gave an uncooperative jerk. Wearily, Fíli said, "Nori, put that down. We've had enough of rocks, I think."

Valor waited until Fíli was steady on his feet. "Not a peaceful beginning."

Ignoring the tense anger of his companions, Fíli sighed. "I did not start it."

"You did not finish it either."

Despite his attempts to keep his temper, Fíli was annoyed enough to bite out his words more tersely than he had intended: "Perhaps you could finish it. " He regretted it the moment he saw Valor's face darken.

"I don't know if I believe what you say about your purpose here, but it's clear enough that even scarcely armed, you're not harmless." He shook his head, speaking as though to himself. "No, I can't leave you at your liberty. You'll have to come with us for now."

"As prisoners?" Dwalin roared. "What have we done? You were the ones who attacked us."

"As captives," Valor corrected. "Until we decide what to do with you."

"It's a waste of time," Jordon snarled. "Valor, it's foolish to take them back with us, near the women and children. We should just get rid of them."

"If they're telling the truth, then they've made a proposition. We should consider it. If they're guilty, that too we should discover. I'll execute them if I have to, but they aren't animals, and I won't slaughter them."

"Hardly better than animals. You saw –"

The older man's patience finally snapped. "Shut up, Jordon!" He turned to the others. "Let's bind them and get moving.

* * *

Author's Note: Ugh. I'm pretty tired of this story. It's frustrating me terribly. I know it isn't very good, but I still want you to know how much I appreciate those of you who've taken the time to leave supportive remarks in your reviews. If it weren't for you, I'd probably just throw up my hands. But don't worry; I know that not being able to finish a story, even a mediocre one, is really obnoxious, so I will finish posting. Take care.

Next Chapter Summary: Fíli faces the vitriol of his companions, who have been made captives of men because of his choices.


	8. Chapter 8

**Trial of Leadership (8/11)**

* * *

By the time the party of men and their captives reached the village, the sun was high. The mist off the river had given way to rolling stretches of tall grass. This was where the men had built their homes, nestled beside a copse of trees. Fíli was dead on his feet with weariness. His head was throbbing where it had been struck, and as he was marched down the main path, flanked on either side by men on horseback, his stomach churned with the fear that he had made a dreadful mistake.

' _Perhaps I should have bartered with the boy's life,'_ he thought, glancing behind him where the lad sat on his recovered horse. He looked very like his father and all the men here: coarse but decent, and Fíli gave a sigh that made the bones in his face ache. ' _No, I could not have killed him.'_

Valor reigned his horse in beside him. "You look unwell."

A wry smile flitted up from somewhere, though Fíli could hardly countenance it. "It seems I was struck in the head with some force."

He could tell he'd startled the man, who obviously hadn't expected even that shred of grim humor. Fíli didn't know where it had come from. His wrists were tightly bound, restricting the blood flow to his numb fingers. His vision kept blurring, and he was hot, despite the coolness of the day. There wasn't exactly much to inspire levity.

' _It's because you're uncomfortable,_ ' his mind whispered. ' _You've been in this position before, and you're trying not to dwell on how much your hands would be shaking if they had any feeling left.'_

Fíli shook his head, banishing that stream of thought. Instead, he scanned their surroundings, frowning at what he saw. It was clear to even the most indifferent eye that the village was unsettled. A new watch tower had been constructed, and it was occupied. Curious faces looked down from its height. Women with creases in their foreheads clutched at brooms or baskets, and children stared with blank expressions.

"Your people look worn, Valor," he observed. "How is it that you left them to accost a group of travelers?"

"We saw smoke from a fire. Decided to investigate." Valor cut his eyes at Fíli. "Raiders aren't always smart."

"Sometimes neither are dwarves," Fíli said.

Valor glanced back at his other captives, who trailed behind them in a straggling, resentful line. "You speak for the others, yet you're not the oldest."

"I'm probably older than you," Fíli remarked, and it was true. More than once, he'd made a friend of this race near his own age, only to return years later and find that same companion grown past the prime of life in mind and body. Though Valor had the grey hairs of an elder, he was likely in his fifties. Still a child by dwarf reckoning.

Valor made a sound in his throat. "You've got a bit of cheek, haven't you?"

Fíli retorted, "It was all that remained. My brother was burdened with the good looks."

"I spoke in earnest."

"And I did not," Fíli sighed, but he knew he needed to drop the attitude. Valor was his only chance to change this situation before it worsened, and alienating him would be foolish. "My uncle leads us, but we were separated. I'm just trying to get us back to him."

"If your uncle is a grandson of Thrór, then he is dwarvish royalty. Are you?"

Inwardly, Fíli grimaced at the question. He certainly didn't look the part of nobility at the moment. "I was born in exile, and I've never been to Erebor. It's true my bloodline is of the house of Durin, but –" He tried to massage his hands, which bore marks from a lifetime of experiences: at the forge, from tools and hard labor. "Perhaps one day."

"You know you sound mad, speaking that way," Valor muttered under his breath.

It was a good sign that he was at least considering the possibility that Fíli spoke the truth. And speaking of truths, there was one lurking here in the hollow, wary eyes of these people. One which might explain why they had been attacked. ' _Dare much_ ,' Fíli heard his brother's voice in his mind. There was the roar of a waterfall behind that voice, coaxing him to the edge. ' _Come on, Fíli. Just jump!'_

Fíli dared. "Valor, what happened here?"

The low voiced murmuring of the men passing words back and forth ceased entirely. Instead, they gazed at the dwarves in their midst with eyes like flinty stones. Fíli went from face to face, trying to penetrate the hard veneer, but all he saw was trepidation, no little anger, and clear mistrust. He was sure they would not answer. But Jordon surprised him.

"A village like ours was destroyed completely, burned to the ground. Horses gone, sheep stolen. Bodies stripped and left rotting. A single boy escaped. He came tearing in, hysterical, too traumatized to speak. We traveled there to see for ourselves. No one was left alive."

It was shocking, abominable. "Was there no sign of who did it?"

Jordon radiated contempt. "You tell me, dwarf."

The sigh he felt was hard to suppress. "We had no part in that," he repeated without much hope that his word would be accepted when it had been rejected so many times before.

Jordon's body remained fixed rigidly, eyes ahead. "So you've said. But you still haven't given me any reason to believe you."

Valor was listening intently. He was the one who would have to be convinced. Fíli tried again. "Listen, I can see that your people are frightened. We seem a threat to your home, your children, but this is not so. There are no others lying in wait." He ignored Dwain and Nori's grunts of disapproval from behind him. "I've asked for your help, but if you will not give it, then at least let us leave. We're just – trying to go home."

For a bare moment, he was certain he had broken through, for Valor's hand had gone slack against the horn of his saddle. He looked out at his small village with its wooden houses, at the rudimentary flowerboxes filled with herbs and wildflowers. At the watchtower, made of timber still fresh-cut and pale. A bleating animal and a child's cry mixed among the background noises.

"No."

Fíli's heart shrank. "Valor –"

The man looked down. "I must protect my people."

It was like having a blanket pressed over his face. ' _So you will have to be patient_ ,' he thought, wiping perspiration from his face. ' _But everyone is alive, don't forget that. Don't lose heart; somehow you will get out of this.'_

This he told himself, and this he forced his outward appearance to suggest. He kept his expression smooth, his shoulders square. However, his nerve almost failed him when they came to the center of the village. There, a single pole was standing erect from the ground. His feet stopped moving as though anchored.

"What has caught your eye?" asked Valor from over his tense shoulder. He followed Fíli's line of sight. "It's a whipping post."

Fíli knew very well what that place was used for. The snap of a whip echoed in his mind, and his back went taught by instinct. Gaze not straying from the wooden post and the barren ground beneath it, he said, "I've witnessed one in use before."

Valor's brow came down, no longer threatening but still stormy. What he guessed, he did not say, but he gestured for them to move on. Forcing his eyes away, Fíli followed.

* * *

They lead the dwarves to a shed. The foundation was stone, with wooden slats that were set apart, leaving gaps at intervals. Valor made their position clear before he left them, his silhouette filling the narrow doorway. "There are men on guard, so don't be foolish enough to think you can escape. I won't leave you tied up, but I will have you shot between the shoulders before I let you do harm here, dishonorable or no."

"What do you know of honor?" Nori wanted to know, eyes flashing to Fíli's forehead, which was still crusted with dried blood.

There was a momentary flash of regret on Valor's face, and Fíli made one final attempt to reach him. "Valor, will you not change your mind? We are not your enemies."

"Nor are you my friends," he said, eyeing the injured dwarf with an unreadable expression. "And unfortunately there are too many lives at stake to barter on a such a strange hope."

Fíli wondered, "Without hope, what is there?"

The hesitation was slight, but Valor still closed his hand around the door, a heavy one with a bolt. He stepped back, "I haven't decided what to make of you, Fíli son of Dís, but until I do, you must be content to wait."

When the door shut, Fíli sat down stiffly on an overturned bucket. His head was still pounding in time with his heart. ' _Steady_ ,' he thought, putting his hand over that stressed organ. Now that the adrenaline had passed, each of his hurts was reasserting themselves, and exhaustion was quickly outpacing his strength.

Ori was peering through the slats in their makeshift prison. "They've already set a guard. I can see them from here. And the on the men on the watchtower have bows." He looked back over his shoulder. "What are we going to do now?"

Swearing foully, Nori threw the only thing available. The old bench clattered against the wall and fell to pieces. "Well, that was hasty," Bofur complained, looking at the broken wood. "Now we've nowhere to sit but the ground, and it looks none too clean, I'll tell you."

Nori practically erupted. "We're prisoners, you dunderhead! Do you think our comfort has any bearing on things? First the spiders, and now this." He rounded on Fíli. "Why didn't we fight while we had the chance? We could have taken a handful of sheepherders."

Wearily, Fíli answered, "They had a pike at Bofur's throat and enough bowmen to kill us all. We couldn't have escaped, Nori."

"So _you_ say," Nori growled. "But now we have no option but to sit here until they execute us. I would have rather taken my chances and died like a dwarf –" He raised his fists. "In combat!"

"I don't think the situation is a bad as it could be. Valor is a good man. I'm sure eventually he'll let us go."

"A good man? He insulted us, accused of being murderers!"

"You heard what they said about the other village," Fíli insisted. He could hardly imagine what they must have seen, walking into a settlement and finding that kind of barbarism. "Their caution may be justified."

"Justified!"

"Yes," Fíli said, holding his aching head in one hand. "If they fear attack, they would be fools not to take care. Would we not do the same?"

Ori asked, "But how are we going to get out of here?"

"We have greater concerns than that," Dwalin spoke. He had been turned away, a mere outline in the dimness of the enclosed space, but now he stood before Fíli, his brow a jagged piece of black lightning. "How could you?"

Betrayal simmered just below the surface of his accusation, and Fíli felt it as though he had been backhanded. "Mister Dwalin," he stammered, dismayed.

"How could you tell them of the quest? You've endangered Thorin, endangered the company, endangered any chance we had of success. What's to stop him from selling that information? The heir of Durin is within reach of the Mountain, and you have just let our enemies know it."

Chagrin was his first instinct; it colored Fíli's flushed face, then drained it just as quickly. He moved his tongue in a throat that was suddenly very dry. It was true that secrecy had been their strategy for these many months. Presumably only the leaders of the dwarf kingdoms, Gandalf and his ilk, and one small hobbit had known that Thorin had finally decide to make his claim on the Mountain. Until now.

' _Should I have lied? Yet we have so few allies_.' He dared to raise his head, no matter how greatly it wounded him to see Dwalin's fury directed at him. "For better or for worse, Mister Dwalin, I chose to trust them." And with greater feeling, he spread his hands and said, "They're our neighbors. In our attempts to regain our kingdom, should we not try to renew old bonds?"

"These are not men of Dale," Dwalin hissed. "They're swineherds and shepherds. We can trust no one except our own people."

"This is their land. They could help us."

"Yes," Dwalin said slowly, and it was as though the tide of his disapprobation and turned. "And that is something else. You promised them payment. You promised it from the mountain."

Fíli was confused. "If we should reclaim Erebor," he said, "there would be wealth enough to pay the debt many times over."

It was the wrong thing to say, for Dwalin erupted with vitriol. "Arrogant child!" he snapped. "You barter with what you do not know, with what you've never seen or bled for! Thorin would never have approved of this."

Outside the village noises carried on as normal, but the space within the structure was soundless. Obscured by the lengthening shadows cast over his face, Fíli said, "It is true what you say. However, I'm not Thorin. I don't reason as he does, or act as he does." He looked up. "But I don't think I'm wrong."

"Our duty is to Thorin," said Dwalin.

Exasperation colored Fíli's voice. "Do you think I want to rejoin the company less than you? But I would not seek haste at the cost of a life."

"Thorin would never negotiate with these pigs. He would never barter with our heritage."

"Are there not veins of gold running like rivers through that mountain? These are the stories that you told us. Yet what good is that to anyone if we're not alive to claim it? These people know the way. They have supplies we sorely need." Desperate for understanding, Fíli said, "A king knows when to yield!"

Dwalin stood straight. "I do not see a king."

The stillness of the air seemed cool on Fíli's burning neck. He hurt in so many places, it was hard to tell if the pain in his chest was from the words or if they were just part of the more general anguish. One way or another, he had no choice but to bear it, just as he had all other discomforts for the many miles they had passed since Mirkwood.

Forcing his voice to be icy and aloof, Fíli said, "Perhaps I never will be king, Mister Dwalin. But I have taken charge of this company until the time we rejoin my uncle. Will you challenge my right to do so?"

The older dwarf balked, his moustaches trembling around his mouth as he searched for something to say. Fíli waited him out, steeling himself for a more serious confrontation. Yet something must have spoken more profoundly than his failing body could, because Dwalin closed his mouth and said nothing.

Relieved, Fíli let his head fall. He didn't want to face the others anymore, though he felt their stares, their doubt, their frustration. "If you will not support me," he said his final word. "At least do not hinder me. There are more than enough opponents already."

Then, feeling more isolated than he had in a long time, he folded his tight, swollen arm across his chest and let his eyes fall shut.

* * *

Author's Note: Once again, I just want to say that this story will be completed; in fact, I finished it today, so no worries. That said, I greatly appreciate those who spoke kindly in your reviews. In a moment of doubt, that encouragement felt like...like aloe on a bug bite, I guess. It took the sting away. So thank you. I hope you enjoy the rest of "Trial of Leadership."

Next Chapter Summary: Fíli faces a final test of his resolve to follow his own path of leadership.


	9. Chapter 9

**Trial of Leadership (9/12)**

* * *

When Fíli woke, someone was shaking him so hard it rattled his teeth. "Thank goodness," Bofur spoke from too close, his breath on Fíli's face. "You wouldn't wake."

Fíli's head was swimming, and at first he couldn't assimilate what was going on around him. However, everything snapped into place when he looked through the cracks in their makeshift prison and saw the fires. The screams of women and horses blended together. Metal clanged. The roar of battle mixed with the whoosh of flame. Dwalin voiced their meaning: "It's an attack."

The raiders that Valor and Jordon had feared were come.

Fíli thrust himself to his feet, hands already scraping the floor, looking for a broken piece of wood. "Nori," he barked. "The planks from the bench, we need them for leverage. Dwalin, ram the wall as hard as you can. Ori, Bofur, Bifur, put your shoulder to it. Come on, now!"

Everyone quickly seized his meaning. With the chaos, there would be no guard, no one watching. Dwalin and the others threw their weight against the wall while Nori and Fíli worked to bend the stressed the weakened wood. Finally, with one final exertion, the planks cracked. The partition gave way, and they forced their way into the night.

Nori's finger pointed to the north. "That way," he whispered. "We can follow the river."

The others hurried to follow him, but Fíli looked back on the besieged village. Though the haze of smoke and the indistinct light, he couldn't make out the attackers at first. Then, out of the mirage of ghostly smog, a shaggy body, muscled and fierce, emerged from the smoke. On its back rode a creature just as bestial. The light of the moon caught it's eyes, which glowed like yellow circles. Warg rider.

Before his eyes, the orc struck a crying woman. One thrust and her voice was cut off, silenced. She had not been armed. She had no valuables. She had simply been mowed down by a killer, who destroyed without motive. Terrified bleating: sheep and horseflesh and the village children. The very ground Fíli stood on seemed to cry out. To these people, it was home, sustenance, survival.

Without realizing what he was doing, Fíli stepped over a corpse and took up the hatchet wedged there.

"Fíli!"

He looked back, into the faces of Dwalin and his companions. He saw their stricken expressions. Alarmed, Bofur asked, "What are you doing?"

Fíli was tired. Tired of the pressure, the contention. Tired of the quarrels, the fears, the anxiety in his own heart. But he could not forsake the sense of righteousness which prevented him from joining them. "Go," he said. "Follow the river and find Thorin."

"What about you? You can't be mad enough to go charging into _that_."

"Why?" Ori asked in a voice that was high and bewildered. "Fíli, they would not help us."

Dwalin took a step toward him, his hand extended. "Laddie." He spoke as he had when Fíli had still been scampering around his knees, begging for stories of glorious battle. "Please. I know I spoke harshly before, but that doesn't mean you should – It's not our fight."

Fíli's straightened his shoulders, his head thrown back. "Did I not say they were our neighbors?" he asked, and then he pivoted on his heel and strode toward the fires.

* * *

The orcs had attacked as a pack, snarling astride their mounts. They bore weapons: roughly honed pieces of iron more suitable for piercing and bludgeoning than searing with an edge. Crude and terrible, but enough for their purpose, which was murder. Fíli saw the cruel iron, already bloody, even as he raised his own weapon.

" _Î_ _mî, kabâru drekh!"_ He announced himself, burying his borrowed hatchet deep into the arteries at the junction in a warg's hind leg. The animal whirled, through it's leg dragged through a trough of its own blood. The orc beat it, but that only maddened it more, and it snapped at its own rider, seizing the flailing arm and dragging the orc onto the ground.

Fíli was waiting to finish both of them, surprise and darkness shielding him like a cloak. Afterwards, he searched for another opponent. The one he found was on foot and came at him swinging a mace. Fili waited for the swing, then flung himself forward, slicing his opponent's throat while the mace whistled over his shoulder.

Another sword came at his back, too quick for him to turn and defend himself. However, that orc was struck in the shoulder with an arrow before it could finish its deadly strike. It squealed, flinching, easy prey. Afterwards, Fíli looked up to the watchtower and was stunned to see Ori carefully fitting another arrow to a borrowed bow. When he saw Fíli's upturned face, he nodded timorously. Fíli's heart swelled with gratitude, and he saluted with his hatchet.

' _You're as brave as any dwarf, Ori,'_ he thought. ' _Let no one tell you otherwise.'_

" _Khazâd ai-mênu!"_

Another shout rang out, and Fíli realized that Ori wasn't the only dwarf in this fight. He heard Bifur's berserker cries as he wielded a pike like every encroaching fighter were the one who had maimed him so many years ago. Bofur guarded his back, armed with the bucket from the shed. From the height of the tower, Ori was putting Kíli's archery lessons to use. His draw was slow, unsure, but he was hitting his mark. Another orc dropped off his mount when a bolt appeared in the animal's shoulder. Fíli thought them all magnificent, and he was proud, though the situation was so bad.

"Fíli."

Fíli swung around and saw Dwalin approaching him beseechingly. Unwilling to listen, Fíli pierced the older dwarf with rings of steel. He couldn't have known it, but the red light of the fire had gotten tangled up in his bright hair, and the flames made the glowing strands look, just for a moment, like a crown.

Dwalin swallowed, whatever he was about to say forestalled. Still staring, he spoke. "I'm with you."

More thankful than he could say at such a time and place, Fíli merely nodded. He turned back to the mêlée.

The fighting went on and on, until Fíli's arms began to feel heavy, especially the wounded one, which he could barely lift. He felled another orc and then stopped, panting for breath in the brief lull. ' _I cannot go on like this much longer_ ,' he thought. ' _Something must change, soon.'_

That is when he heard the cry of desperation: "Back, you beasts! I'll kill you if you come nearer!"

The voice was one that Fíli knew. Pivoting on his heel, he saw a man defending a door. His curling hair was plastered down with sweat, and there were blood splatters on his face and arms, as though he had already done much fighting. It was Jordon. He held his worthless knife in front of his body like he would impale any who came close. Behind the thin partition he guarded, Fíli could hear someone crying.

The man looked ready to die before forfeiting that place, but his opponent was ruthless and inhumanly strong. It easily batting his weapon away, and then dragged Jordon forward by the neck, raising a wickedly curved scimitar. Despite the pain in Fíli's temple, courtesy of the dishonorable blow he'd been struck, Fíli knew he couldn't condemn Jordon to death, not if he could prevent it. Shouting, he seized the orc, flinging it back from its intended victim.

The orc quickly regained balance. " _K_ _hozd_ ," the it hissed, sounding both shocked and outraged. Fíli understood the feeling. There should not be orcs here. Were they scavengers, after the small plunder, or did they serve some greater, unknown purpose?

Setting aside those questions for now, Fíli bore his teeth. The orc looked him up and down, then it hawked a thick wad of mucus and spat, snarling in its filthy language. Deliberately, Fíli raised the hatchet, which looked small compared to the heavy weapon his opponent carried.

Contemptuous, the orc circled. Fíli tracked it with his eyes. Finally, it howled with rage and attacked. Fíli stuck at the same time, leaving a deep scour along the orc's ribs. Maddened, it thrust its sword with whip-like speed, the scimitar scrapping past Fíli as he evaded. Two, three passes he escaped unharmed, but on the forth he stumbled, and the blade caught his ear, slicing deep.

But even as the pain registered, Fíli was already lunging. While his enemy's body was exposed, he stepped under the creature's guard and buried his hatchet deep under the creature's armpit. He saw it hemorrhage. A critical wound. But not one that was instantly fatal, and he paid for it.

The hilt of the scimitar crashed down on his head, and Fíli buckled onto his hands and knees. He gasped, barely supporting himself on one elbow, the other too weak to hold his weight. Had his opponent been in any condition to strike, he would have been dead in that moment. However, as he blinked though the night, he saw the orc swaying heavily, its hand around the head of the hatchet. Black ichor was pumping thick and dark. The orc had moment only. But in those moments, its teeth drew together in a snarl made even more threatening by the red foam painted on them. Its bead-like eyes rested on Fíli as it stepped forward, the scimitar still fisted in a vice-like grip. Hatred clear on the oozy, perspiring face, it hissed, _"_ _Guru_ _, S_ _naga_ _."_

And that is when, like a gust of wind, Fíli realized he wasn't going to die. ' _Not here_ ,' his mind spoke with absurd calmness. ' _Not quite yet.'_ And as if that strange clarity gave a final burst of strength, Fíli threw himself against the orc's raised arm and bore both of them to the ground. They grappled, the orc's claws scrapping and biting into Fíli's face, but Fíli was relentless.

' _I will see my brother again,'_ he thought. ' _I will not die because of you!'_

And still with his hands around the contested hilt, Fíli drove his elbow into the hatchet still carving the orc's side. It shrieked, writhing with such terrible strength that Fíli was sure he would be bucked free – and then with a one final heave it was over. The beast gurgled and fell limp, barely breathing. Fíli looked into the dull eyes that were already fading and took pity. He lifted the sword and severed the jugular. What light remained was extinguished, and Fíli's chin dropped on his breast.

Shakily and with great effort, he attempted to regain his feet. However, his muscles weren't cooperating. Perplexed, he consulted his body, which he barely recognized. ' _Too much blood_ ,' he thought. ' _Might as well cast these clothes into that fire over there_.'

Someone touched his elbow, and he looked up. It was Jordon, who asked, "Are you well?"

Rather than answer, Fíli cast his eyes around the tableau. Some places were still burning, but villagers were beating them out. It seemed the raiding party had been driven off. Fíli saw Valor, limping but alive. He also saw his companions – Dwalin, Nori, Ori, Bifur, and Bofur. They were coming toward him, but Fíli could not read their expressions. Dwalin's gaze was especially difficult to understand. Fíli wasn't sure if he'd ever seen that look.

Or maybe it was just the heat. He raised his weak arm, which trembled, and tried to wipe some of the sweat stinging his eyes. He felt light headed. Without realizing, he started to list, but Jordon held onto him until the others were there. Dwalin searched him with hands that shook. "Did it cut you? Where are you wounded?"

Wounded? Fíli felt terribly confused. ' _You may need to lie down_ ,' something inward chided, but another part was still struggled to stay upright, even though it hurt him. Oh, it hurt so badly. "Valor," he said, hoping the man could hear him. "You'll be a scoundrel if you put us back in that shed."

And that was the last thing he knew before he ingloriously passed out, right on the field of battle.

* * *

Next Chapter Summary: The aftermath of the attack.


	10. Chapter 10

**Trial of Leadership (10/11)**

* * *

' _I keep waking up in strange places_.'

That was Fíli's first coherent thought once he managed to open his gummy eyes some time later. Above his head, he could see a roof, only slightly charred. A smoky smell laid over everything, but he could also smell the sharp odor of blood and something spicy, like one of Óin's dreadful ointments. And sheep. He cleared his throat cautiously.

The feeble sound drew attention, for hands entered his field of vision, holding a cup of water. A hoarse voice spoke, which Fíli recognized though he didn't understand the words. "Bifur," he rasped after the water had unlocked his throat.

A pat on the side of his face, very gentle, and then that inscrutable face darkened with emotion. _"Uzbadê,_ _í_ _ridzu du-khuzd belkul_ _."_

"Um," Fíli said. "Okay, Bifur. Would you help me sit up?"

A querulous voice scolded him from somewhere out of sight: "You should lie still."

Fíli craned his neck and saw an elderly woman approach. She laid her cool, wrinkled hand on his forehead. "Fever's gone down, finally. Wasn't sure it would. I've heard dwarves have a strong constitution, but you were pretty far gone. It's been two days."

"Two _days_?"

The woman hummed. "The blows you took to the head did you no favors, but it was actually the other wounds that were more serious. They were putrid with infection. I thought you would lose that arm."

Fíli's fingers clenched compulsively, sending a shock of pain straight to his elbow. Instinct told him he owed his wellbeing to this woman's tending, and he thanked her sincerely. "You have my gratitude."

"You almost had no one to thank, you young fool," she answered in a crotchety tone. "That wound was deep and stinking. I didn't think I could drain it."

"Spiders," Fíli said weakly, feeling the deep ache in his belly where it had pierced him and where the healer's lance had sought out the infirmity. "My side, too."

"Yes. Stupid not to have treated it."

"We weren't in much condition for that," Fíli said, but even as he did, another thought occurred. "I wasn't the only one bitten. Are the others well?" Not slaughtered by the orcs, or stuck with an arrow –? He didn't realize how hard he was breathing until Bifur laid a calming hand on his shoulder.

"They're well," the healer said. "We tended them. None were as bad as yours."

Bifur raised his tunic, revealing what remained of a puncture wound high on his ribs, busily mixed in with his other scars. It was well on its way to healing.

"Guess I was unlucky," Fíli said, relieved.

The healer gave him a pointed look. "Even youth can be pushed too far."

Fíli knew she was right, though it made him feel like a fool. He'd known there was something wrong, and he was certain that when he saw Dwalin, he would hear about it. For the moment, though, there were more serious concerns. Searching the healer's face, he asked, "Did many die?"

She paused. "Not so many. We would have lost more had you not come to our aid."

Closing his eyes, Fíli said, "I'm sorry that you had to lose any."

Picking up a armful of bandages ready for use, the woman moved toward the door. "Your people are waiting. Since you're awake, I'll tell them."

She was gone only moments before the flap over the door was flung open. Fíli was startled when Ori suddenly fastened onto him. Propriety caught up almost right away, however, and he backed up onto his knees, embarrassed. "Sorry," he muttered. "It's just so good to see you awake. Did I hurt you?"

Fíli stretched his stiff body, feeling the reluctant aches, and couldn't help repeating a proverb he'd heard many times: "Pain means you're alive. Right, Mister Dwalin?"

"I've had enough of your mimicry," said the older dwarf sternly, but in the clearer light, Fíli could see the fretful lines on his face. To his surprise, Dwalin made no effort to hide it, even going so far as to lower himself onto Fíli's sickbed. He asked, "How do you feel, Laddie?"

"Much stronger," he said, trying to sit up. In the end, he required a hand from Ori and Bifur. "Still, I'm sure I'll be hale and hearty soon enough. Those ugly punctures are sewn up, and as for my head, I've been told it's quite hard."

"You could have lost it entirely," Dwalin said, reaching out carefully to part his hair. Fíli hissed when fingers found the newest knot. "I saw you face that orc with its scimitar, and you carrying only a hatchet. Did I not teach you better?"

"I saw it, too, from the tower," said Ori, his voice bordering on awe. "You were brave."

"Stupid, you mean," muttered Fíli, uncomfortable with the way Ori was looking at him. It was bad enough before, but this was ridiculous. Hoping for reprieve, he attempted to engage dependable Bofur. "Serve me right if I were decapitated, wouldn't you say, Bofur?"

However, the perpetual joker let him down. Much quieter than usual, he said, "No. It was brave."

Sensing a change in the current between them, Fíli looked sharply at his companions. The last he'd spoken to them, he'd been sure they were ready to dump him in the river. Now they were acting strangely. Had he worried them so much?

"I'm fine," he said reassuringly, in case that was it. "Better than I have a right to be, considering. Perhaps it wouldn't have been so without you. Thank you for coming back."

"It was the right thing to do," said Nori. It was the first time he had spoken, but now he leaned closer and said, "Fíli, I wasn't thinking right in that shed. You were right not to jump straight to violence; it would have been wrong. You should have seen these people, after the orcs left."

"Everyone was weeping, their faces stark white," Ori said sadly. "After the fires were out, some of them just sat down on the ground and rocked. It was terrible."

"They aren't fighters," Nori said. "If we'd have left, those bastards would have killed everyone, and I can't bear thinking of it."

For a time there was only grieved silence; however, Dwalin didn't allow it to hang too long. "Laddie," he began. "I was afraid for you."

Fíli rubbed the back of his neck. "I know better than to ignore a wound. I suppose you think I got what I deserved."

"Never would I think that," Dwalin denied fiercely, but there was something else, something beyond how near Fíli had come to death. Something Dwalin seemed to be struggling to articulate. Finally, he spoke plainly. "I'm not an eloquent dwarf. My brother's always been the deep thinker. He calls me simple, hot-headed, but I've always embraced my nature. I speak what's on my mind, and I think with my fists more often than not. I've always taken pride in that."

Fíli was confused. "I don't understand, Mister Dwalin."

Dwalin grimaced. "There's no other way to say it: I'm sorry."

"Sorry!" Fíli's eyebrows flew into his hairline. To say that he was shocked to hear those words was an understatement. Never, in his entire life had he heard an apology from Dwalin son of Fundin. It was enough to make wonder if the blows he'd taken were causing him to hear things. "But, Mister Dwalin – why?"

"Because I let my prejudices get the better of me. I judged based on my own way of doing things…and on Thorin's. If I'd had more faith in you, maybe things would have been different."

Fíli felt humbled and slightly sick to his stomach. He didn't feel that he had earned such faith. "I haven't given you much reason. I've lead us into disaster at every turn, and now this. I don't even know for certain that Ki – that Thorin – waits for us at Lake-town. We barely survived, and we may have come all this way for nothing."

Ori reached out and grasped his hand. It was childish, but the warmth of contact did bring comfort. "You're too hard on yourself, Fíli. I think you've done wonderfully."

Fíli almost rolled his eyes, for he knew that Ori saw all his efforts through a lens biased in his favor, but to his surprise, Nori echoed him, "He's right. You've had the chore or leading a bunch of mules around by the nose, and I think you've managed it well."

"It's true," Bofur piped up cheerfully. "I think I'll be remembering Mister Dwalin's face dripping with mud for all of my days!"

Fíli grimaced; that childish outburst of his was still embarrassing to recall. He looked at Bifur. "Everyone is so encouraging. Have you any more just criticism to give?"

The old veteran gazed at him with his misty eyes, which so often seemed far off and unknowable. But now they were rapt, and as he watched they filled with tears. "S _âti k_ _huzd belkul_ ," he said, and made a sign that was unmistakable, a fisted hand thrust against his heart in grave salute.

Deeply moved, Fíli looked around at his friends, soaking in their warm regard, something he'd had reason to believe he would never earn. He still wasn't sure he had done right, but there was a relaxing of tension, a certain peace, in knowing they didn't blame him for his mistakes.

"The truth is that I'll be happy to leave these cares to Thorin." Fíli said, covering his eyes. "It makes me tired."

Very low, almost too low for any to hear but Fíli, Dwalin murmured, "You would make a good king."

A kind of pain filled up Fíli's chest again, but this time it was easier, much easier, to bear. Offering his old mentor a smile, he said, "Let us hope we will never have to find out."

* * *

The fever passed, and with his wounds properly tended, Fíli made strides toward recovery. It would be hard to travel, but he knew that with help he could. It was a good thing, too. The nip of the freshening north wind admonished him. If they were ever to catch up to his uncle before Durin's day, they must go soon.

However, there was a discussion that needed to happen before then. Valor agreed to speak with him, and they met outside the healer's cottage. Fíli was somewhat surprised to find Jordon was with him. More surprised still when the first thing his former adversary did was extend his arm, a gesture between equals. He said, "I didn't believe you. I'm sorry."

Fíli took the offered arm and gripped it with strength. "If it had been me, I might have done the same. I understand."

"But I do not." The lines on Valor's face seemed more strident than ever, and his hair was mused with the passage of restless fingers. "You joined a battle to defend your captors when you could have gone."

Fíli couldn't keep a sliver of humor from coloring his voice. "How many times must I say that we are neighbors?" However, when Valor's frown remained fixed, Fíli tried another tact. "When I saw your folk being attacked by those orcs, it just wasn't in me to walk away. That's all."

Valor's eyes were turbulent and deep – like the river. And also like the river, they were wet. He blinked, asking, "Are all dwarves so foolhearty?"

It made Fíli's heart lift to hear that admonishment, because it was wrapped in acceptance. Acceptance they could build on. Yet before he could continue speaking, a feather-light touch on his knee interrupted him. He looked down and found a child standing by him, large dark eyes on a solemn face. Puzzled, he glanced at the men for an explanation.

"This is my daughter," Jordan said. "She was behind the door."

Behind the... "Oh," Fíli said. Sadly, he smiled at the quiet child, who had been witness to such terrible violence. "Hullo, lass."

Her nose scrunched, and in that moment it was easy to see her father in her. Then she raised her arms in a wordless request. It was a universal gesture, one easily understood. Fíli glanced at her watchful father, but he made no objection, so he lifted her and sat her on his knee. There she peered at his face, the blond stubble and his pale eyes, which he tried to curve into pleasant shapes for her. Finding her gaze had latched onto the gristly stitches, he offered a grimacing smile. "I bumped my head."

Jordon spoke. "She saw."

Fíli glanced up with understanding. He read the gratitude Jordon couldn't express. Bolder now, the girl patted Fíli's chest to draw his attention. Her fists caught his hair and pulled down, so that her cool lips could place a kiss on his nose.

"Good girl," said the old woman, who was lingering nearby. "Nothing mends wounds faster. Make sure he drinks that tea, and you'll make a fine healer one day." She pointed at imperious finger at the clay cup in Fíli's hand.

Jordon's daughter remained in his lap for the rest of the interview, turning the tassel of his hood in her fingers and pressing the noxious tea into his chin when he left it neglected too long. Fíli was soothed by her presence, a tangible reminder of what might have been lost had another choice been made.

There were practical matters to speak of. For one thing, Fíli was concerned about the orcs. He didn't understand their presence here. Dwalin, who was leaning against the building, shook his head. "It may be that you're right. Azog and that other filth I could reason away as something to do with the quest, but –"

"Not this," Fíli agreed. "These weren't a bedraggled group of scavengers. They were warg riders, with weapons that had been forged, not stolen." He remembered that scimitar vividly. His notched ear wasn't nearly so bad as Dwalin's, but he would always remember that weapon by the flesh it had sheered away.

"We didn't realize it was orcs," said Valor. "We thought they were wainriders, after the horses, or just bandits. This is much worse than we feared."

"You think there may be more?"

Valor looked up. "Don't you?"

Fíli nodded regretfully. "There's something –" He struggled to describe his dread. Mountain trolls in the gentle bottom lands, goblins infesting a pass thought by a wizard to be safe. The Greenwood infested with spiders, and now wandering bands of orcs where they should not be. He shook his head. "Something isn't right, Valor. It may be best if you moved east. Further from Mirkwood."

"You're likely right," Valor said, looking with regret at the burnt remains of his village. "We didn't want to abandon our home, but were it not for you and your people, we would have lost everything."

Fíli agreed. Orcs did not leave survivors unless they took them as slaves, which by most was considered a fate worse than death. Still, as he felt Valor's grief, it moved him to say, "You may feel like you're being driven from your homeland, but you can reclaim it. Survive and return another day."

He didn't expect the sympathy in Valor's eyes as he said, "You're right. I just hope it will not take so long that my great-grandson must fight for it."

Fíli grinned. "Hard to say. The lives of men are so short."

Dwalin snorted.

"On to other business," Valor said. "Getting you and your company safely to the end of your journey. We can outfit you, and if you don't mind the smell, there are weapons in plenty. We took them before we burned the carcasses."

The acrid black smoke was still lifting into the air, and it did stink.

"That would do fine," said Fíli. "But what would do even better is a guide. I hate to admit it, but we haven't done well on our own."

Jordan lifted his daughter onto his hip. "I'll take them," he said, and when everyone present looked at him with suprise, he pinned Fíli with a fierce, proud eye. "You protected my family, even after I did you harm. I don't know if I believe in a King Under the Mountain, but if there was one, I would not mind if it were you."

Fíli coughed. "Well, I'll probably get eaten by a dragon."

Jordon made a sign, a ward against evil. "May it never be."

* * *

Next Chapter Summary: Finally, the company of Thorin Oakenshield is finally reunited.


	11. Chapter 11

**Trial of Leadership (11/11)**

* * *

A fortnight; that was how long the company of Thorin Oakenshield had occupied the creaking planks and watery byways of Lake-town. The amazed denizens had accepted their presence, though the mercenary gleam in the Master's eyes still gave Bilbo shudders. A round of feasting had filled out lean bellies, but it could not touch the deeper hunger, which could not be satiated by food.

Bilbo tread softly, accustomed now to the sway beneath his feet as the current pushed and pulled. Before him, the lake was like a great inky glass, reflecting the night sky in a wavering reflection. It was beautiful, even though Lake-town was not. The city stood on moldering wood, ripe with dank and oozy smells. It had no feel of a hearth to it, no home-feeling. And that, more than anything, reassured Bilbo of the rightness of their quest.

' _It's not just the dwarves suffering from the evil influence of that dragon,_ ' thought Bilbo. ' _It's the whole countryside.'_

However, it wasn't the fate of Lake-town that concerned him this night. He found the person he was looking for leaning against a guardrail, face turned toward the far shore. Kíli was so absorbed he took no notice of Bilbo, though he didn't try to conceal his presence.

He cleared his throat deliberately, and the shaggy head lifted, silently watching as the hobbit joined him. Bilbo had to stand on a crate to manage it – ' _Blasted big folk and their confounded dimensions!_ ' – yet one look at Kíli and his irritation withered. He reached inside his vest and took out an apple, giving it a polish before pressing it into Kíli's hand.

"I noticed you barely touched your supper. Your brother wouldn't approval, you know. This quest has been short enough on commons already, and we can't afford to miss a meal."

"I haven't had much appetite," admitted Kíli, turning the apple in his palm. "And I don't sleep. When I was in that cell in Mirkwood, I had so much time to imagine terrible things, but I think this is worse."

Bilbo understood what he meant. He, too, had far too much time to think about the fate of Fíli and the others. Sometimes he had nightmares of their bodies warped with sticky webs, and was forced to watch as one of those great, fat spiders stroked them with its pedipalps then reached down to feed with a rasping mouth… He shook his head to dispel the awful image.

Kíli was looking across the water again, thin-lipped with anxiety. "It's taking everything in me not to seize a boat and go searching for them, Bilbo."

This was were Kíli and Thorin were different. Kíli was willing to take off into the wilderness in search of his brother, forsaking all other responsibilities. Yet Bilbo had sat through enough conferences with Thorin to know his mind. He was convinced that if their missing companions were alive, they would come to Lake-town: _'He knew where we were headed._ _If they're well and fit for travel, Fíli will bring them here.'_

' _And if they're not well?'_ Balin had asked as they sat in tense communion.

Thorin let silence drop before he answered. ' _Then they are beyond our help. We'll give them as long as we can, but when Durin's day is upon us, we'll have to move on_.'

' _Without Fíli?"_ Bilbo declared.

' _The quest must succeed,'_ Thorin said, placing his hand upon the hilt of his weapon. His head was bowed as though under a great weight. ' _Even if my sister-son is not beside me to share it._ '

It was a hard counsel, and Bilbo had to swallow hard around remembered frustration and grief before he could speak. "Please don't, Kíli. We couldn't bear to – to loose someone else."

Kíli flinched, and Bilbo immediately regretted his choice of words. "You don't know my brother," he said. "He led them out of the forest, Bilbo. I know it. He wouldn't – he wouldn't leave me alone."

Sorrow filled Bilbo as his mind went back to loved ones he'd lost much too soon. "It isn't always our choice."

Lapping water broke gently against the poles supporting the platform. The stars wavered, in and out, as though they too were shifting on the tide. Certain he'd done more harm that good, Bilbo started to step down from his crate, but Kíli snagged the edge of his sleeve before he could. "Bilbo."

The hobbit looked up. "Yes?"

"In Mirkwood, you asked me to tell you a story. I know you were trying to distract me from thinking about my brother."

Feeling somewhat abashed that his intentions had been so transparent, Bilbo ran his hand over the back of his neck, ruffling his hair. "Well, I could hardly leave you sitting alone in the dark like that."

Kíli's eyes were milder than before as he said, "It was kindly meant. That's why I told you about the birds."

Bilbo fondly recalled the young boys from that distant time and place – poor, harassed Fíli with his flashing gold hair and little Kíli, wickedly presenting dead birds to one farmer after the other in order to collect his bounty. "It was a good tale."

Kíli looked up at the sky, and the stars reflected in his dark eyes. "Would you like to hear another?"

Even without asking, Bilbo knew that this story would not be the same as before. He hesitated, but how could he refuse? Kíli needed him now as much as before, and Bilbo sensed that what he wished to share was important – something to do with why Kíli could not doubt his brother, not even when every speck of evidence pointed to the fact that he was…that he was gone.

Bilbo rested his forearms against the guardrail. "Tell me, Kíli."

As though weighed down, Kíli rolled his shoulders. His voice dipped confidentially low as he began. "Once, when we were lads, soon after Thorin brought us to Ered Luin to foster us, Fíli and I were exploring the woods. We didn't know the area well yet, and Thorin told us we weren't to go far. We didn't disobey him on purpose, but there was a sudden drop off, and we fell. When we regained consciousness, the sun was almost down and we didn't know where we were. Even the next morning, we couldn't find our way back."

Bilbo ached for them, even though it was only a memory. "I would have been terrified."

Kíli nodded his head, a storm cloud over his brow. "We wandered for a long time, many days. Then we stumbled on a village. Not dwarves. Men."

Bilbo imagined two tiny dwarrow, vulnerable and alone, surrounded by a town full of big folk. A chill of dread went down his spine.

Far away in his thoughts, Kíli didn't seem to notice Bilbo's discomfort. "We were desperate. Down to gnawing on our belts and boots. We needed help."

"Did they give it, the town folk?"

Kíli cleared his throat. "Some men in the west hate dwarves. They believe we're squatting on their land and take business from their smiths and masons."

There must have been so many dwarves looking for work during the early days of exile, and a people who had nothing worked for little. Even once they were established, Bilbo knew that dwarvish craftsmanship would always trump all others. It wasn't hard to imagine how the displaced nation might be despised. Yet even so, he could hardly imagine taking out such enmity against children.

Bilbo's heart constricted. "What happened, Kíli?"

"While Fíli was trying to reason with them, I rummaged a rubbish bin behind the tavern. I was _caught_." He spat the word as though it angered him to repeat it. Then he held out his long, strong hands, which stretched so easily around a bow. "They _caught_ me and were going to cut off two of my fingers."

"No!"

"Oh, yes," Kíli hissed. "For ' _stealing'_ scraps not fit for a compost pile, they would have maimed me."

"Thank goodness they didn't," Bilbo said vehemently.

Kíli crossed his arms, tucking away what he'd almost lost. "Fíli begged them not to. He wept, pleading with them to see that I was a baby, that I hadn't known it was wrong, that he was responsible for me."

Bilbo could hardly bring himself to ask. "And?"

"And they had mercy. Reduced the sentence. They put me in the arms of some woman and they beat my brother while I watched. Those bastards beat him, and then they locked us up in a gaol. We might have died there, too."

"You didn't."

"I was devastated, Bilbo. I've never cried so hard, then or since, but Fíli wrapped his arms around me and said – he said, _'Don't be afraid, we'll be home soon.'_ "

Bilbo tried to imagine what could make a hurting child have so much faith that he could still comfort his younger brother in such a situation. He thought of the quieter son of Dís, and was struck by a memory of their first meaningful encounter.

It had been the night he left the Shire. That evening had been full of wild sounds, and Bilbo had never felt so lost. As he sat trembling before the fire, too unsettled to appreciate the rough company of his traveling companions, Fíli had suddenly leaned over and tucked a handkerchief into his hand. _"It's okay to be homesick,"_ he'd said and then went back to his tobacco pouch as though unaware of how Bilbo's hand clenched around that threadbare square of cloth like it was the last one on earth.

He still had it folded inside his vest pocket.

Bilbo's throat thickened as he began to understand. Fíli had an ability to bring calm where there was none. He was steady, not easily moved by circumstance, and it made him like a wall of solid stone: a safe place to put your back. He remembered what Kíli had said in Mirkwood, about Fíli's temperament standing in stark contrast to his family's fiery nature.

' _You're like opposite sides of a magnet, aren't you?'_ he thought, looking at Kíli, who was quickly loosing ground as he was forced to stand alone. ' _Opposite natures, but the force that draws you together is powerful. You're stronger together.'_

"What happened to you both?" Bilbo asked, imagining the darkness of that gaol.

"Thorin found us three days later," Kíli answered. "He took us home. But I've never forgotten."

Bilbo didn't understand. "Forgotten?"

"When it comes down to it, Fíli will be anything he needs to be to protect the people he cares about. He'll do anything – bear anything – and that's how I know, Bilbo. He _did_ survive the spiders. He _did_ lead them out of the forest, and he _is_ coming. Fíli won't disappoint us. He doesn't know how."

"Kíli –" There was a part of Bilbo that wanted to protest, to protect both of their hearts from the anguish of hoping, but he couldn't. ' _Since when were you one to give up hope, Bilbo Baggins?'_ he castigated himself. Out loud, he said, "I'm sure you're right. Dwarves may be pigheaded with terrible table manners, but you're also the most perseverant lot I've ever met."

Kíli looked at him with a smile in his eyes, the first in a long while. "Thank you."

And that was when the air was filled with the sound of bells. The discordant clamoring interrupted the quiet evening, and all around them – from every window and every door – lantern lights began to be lit. Soon the whole town was awake with curiosity. Bilbo and Kíli looked at one another, but before they could go investigate, a figure came barreling around the corner. It was Glóin, looking both frazzled and elated. "A ferry's just coming in," he declared. "It's the lads!"

Bilbo's eyebrows disappeared under the fringe of his hair. "All of them?" He hardly dared to believe it.

"All," Glóin explained gleefully. He waved. "Come on. They're almost arrived."

Too overcome to speak, they ran for the unloading dock and reached it just as the lopsided, leaking vessel touched the landing. It was being eagerly paddled by a most exultant ferryman. "Found them on the south side of the lake. Bedraggled as a knot of seaweed, but I knew 'em. Knew 'em for more a'them dwarves. Didn't even charge 'em passage!"

His triumph was well deserved, for his cargo was precious.

It was one of those rare times when Bilbo was glad to be an outside observer. With keen satisfaction, he watched with heady relief as his friends were reunited. Dori was openly sobbing, his great arms cast around both his brothers. They humored him, Nori patting his back in a slow, affectionate manner, while Ori barely looked as though he minded having his face smashed into his brother's bosom.

Bofur was teasing Bombur, who was sniffing loudly into a handkerchief the size of a soup tureen, while Bifur made happy motions with his fingers. At the same time, Bilbo caught sight of the sons of Fundin pounding their forehead together, just as they had that night in Bilbo's smial.

But most of all, Bilbo watched as the last figure stepped out of the boat just a trifle unsteadily, aided by Bard's helping hand. Fíli paused to pass a few words with the man, and Bilbo saw approval seep onto Bard's distrustful face. Yet there was only time for a few spare words, for Kíli had forced his way through the crowd and flew at his brother with so much force they both went down in a tangle of limbs.

Bilbo was momentarily alarmed, but then his heart soared as a sound he had sorely missed reached his ears: twin laughter, filled with honest joy. It filled up all the empty spaces that had grown so large, until every bystander smiled, infected by their happiness. Bilbo scrapped his eyes with the heels of his hands, inwardly remonstrating, _'Bilbo, you sentimental old fool,'_ and began to squeeze through legs and hips, intent on making his own greeting.

He made it to the front in time to see Thorin reach his nephews. They froze under his shadow, and Fíli looked up. Thorin drew him to his feet. They did not embrace, but even Bilbo could feel the intensity of Thorin's emotion as he rested both his hands on Fíli's shoulders. "Well met, Nephew," he said.

Fíli bowed his head, one hand finding its way to his heart, a dutiful salute from a subject to his king. Then he smiled, as bright as the sun. "Did you doubt us, Uncle?"

"Nor for a moment," Kíli said, attached to his brother's side.

Thorin solemnly nodded. "Not even for so long as that."

"What on earth happened to you?" Glóin wanted to know. The company had drawn near, like loosened stitches drawing closed.

"Well, first there was the spiders." Bofur began counting on his fingers. "And then the Long Marshes, which have been _highly_ misrepresented, then mires that tried to swallow us whole, poisonous snakes, a river of death. Then we were made captive by men, but we escaped when the orcs attacked."

"What?" Dori cried in dismay, and Ori went "Urk!" as his head was squeezed even tighter.

"It sounds as though you had a hard road," Balin said, brushing his white beard thoughtfully. He looked them over, at their ripped and splattered garments, ruined with water and dirt. There was a bruised look to their eyes made them seemed stretched thin, but they stood with their heads high.

"Oh," said Fíli. "It wasn't so bad as Bofur makes it sound. We survived."

"Though a little worse for wear, I see," Óin commented, peering critically at the stitches peeking out of Fíli's shorn hair. Thorin brushed Fíli's forehead with his thumb, careful to avoid the jagged line. There were other scratches, too, and Bilbo remembered how stiff he'd seemed getting out of the ferry.

That was when Dwalin stepped to Thorin's side. "We were well lead, Thorin."

His meaningful look left no doubt of whom he spoke, and pride smoldered out of Thorin's dark face. He drew Fíli's eyes with a touch. "I'm not surprised."

Bofur crowed, "And now that we're a company of fourteen once more, we're ready for a true celebration!"

"Hear, hear!" shouted Glóin, whose eyes were almost lost in his red face. "A pint and a toast as soon as they can be had!"

A cheer went up, as bombastic as ever, and Bilbo knew that things would soon be back to normal. Fíli was already fading into the background of the boisterous merrymaking, wearing that quirky grin, as though there were some secret joke which only he knew. He seemed content to stand quietly, letting Óin fuss over him while his brother babbled in his ear.

Yet Bilbo couldn't help but notice that not everything was the same. Something had shifted. Ori no longer seemed content to follow at Dori's heels like a puppy, but stood with his shoulder's lifted, filled with assurance. Bifur keep one eye on Fíli's back, like an honor guard, and Nori and Bofur kept glancing his way, too, as though they'd grown used to searching his face. Most telling of all was the change in Dwalin. Before he had treated both Fíli and Kíli with a kind of brusque fondness, but now when he looked at Fíli there was difference and deep respect. It was a look Bilbo had only seen directed at one other person: Thorin himself.

There was a tale there, Bilbo knew. One that would come out in time. But it seemed it had served good purpose. The missing members of their company had made it back, and now they were whole again. In the morning, they would make new plans. Plans to reach the mountain, to face a dragon, and – if fate was willing – to restore the dwarves of Erebor to their kingdom. But when they did, Bilbo strongly suspected would be two sons of Durin leading them.

One before with his imperious tread –

And one behind, bearing a nobility that shone when needed, like a spark at the bottom of a bucket of coal.

* * *

Author's Note: All done. There were times I really struggled with this story, which needs a lot more polishing. A beta would really be helpful, so if you know of a reader familiar with _The Hobbit_ who wouldn't mind being contacted at some point about a future project, I'd appreciate that contact. For those of you who saw this story through, your feedback was truly kind and I appreciate it. In particular, I'd like to thank repeat reviewers. You're wonderful!

 **Special Thanks to These Repeat Reviewers** : Celebrisilweth, delovlies, Eryndil, Lady Chekov, Mjean, ncis-lady, Shiningheart of ThunderClan, Thomas H. Bombadil, Thorny Hedge, and TMI Fairy.


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